News Releases

Neuromorphic computers, inspired by the architecture of the human brain, are proving surprisingly adept at solving complex mathematical problems that underpin scientific and engineering challenges.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed an innovative new technique using carbon nanofibers to enhance binding in carbon fiber and other fiber-reinforced polymer composites – an advance likely to improve structural materials for automobiles, airplanes and other applications that require lightweight and strong materials. 

Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University have shown that particles produced in collimated sprays called jets retain information about their origins in subatomic particle smashups.

Researchers have determined that six gas valves provide the best protection against plasma disruptions in SPARC, a next-generation, experimental fusion system. By refining the setup for the fusion vessel’s massive gas injection system, researchers are ensuring that disruptions — sudden jets of plasma that can damage the fusion vessel’s inner walls — are controlled efficiently, paving the way for safer, more robust fusion power plants.

Researchers have discovered that phasons, low-temperature quasiparticles found in crystal lattices, enable interlayer excitons to move at very low temperatures, when motion should stop. In addition to contributing to foundational materials science knowledge, this discovery could help improve the stability of quantum technologies, such as using excitons as qubits.

Scientists are exploring how web search engine technology might also keep the lights on, the water running and the trains moving.

Physicists have created a new computer code that could speed up the design of the complicated magnets that shape the plasma in stellarators, making the systems simpler and more affordable to build.

Scientists have discovered “berkelocene,” the first organometallic molecule to be characterized containing the heavy element berkelium. The breakthrough disrupts long-held theories about the chemistry of the elements that follow uranium in the periodic table.