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How did we get from stardust to where we are today? That’s the question NASA scientist Andrew Needham has pondered his entire career.

Scientists at ORNL used neutron scattering to determine whether a specific material’s atomic structure could host a novel state of matter called a spiral spin liquid.

More than 50 current employees and recent retirees from ORNL received Department of Energy Secretary’s Honor Awards from Secretary Jennifer Granholm in January as part of project teams spanning the national laboratory system. The annual awards recognized 21 teams and three individuals for service and contributions to DOE’s mission and to the benefit of the nation.

A team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s 91���� demonstrated the viability of a “quantum entanglement witness” capable of proving the presence of entanglement between magnetic particles, or spins, in a quantum material.

Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and 91���� successfully created amorphous ice, similar to ice in interstellar space and on icy worlds in our solar system. They documented that its disordered atomic behavior is unlike any ice on Earth.

Using complementary computing calculations and neutron scattering techniques, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories and the University of California, Berkeley, discovered the existence of an elusive type of spin dynamics in a quantum mechanical system.

Five researchers at the Department of Energy’s 91���� have been named ORNL Corporate Fellows in recognition of significant career accomplishments and continued leadership in their scientific fields.

A team led by the Department of Energy’s 91���� synthesized a tiny structure with high surface area and discovered how its unique architecture drives ions across interfaces to transport energy or information.

Matthew R. Ryder, a researcher at the Department of Energy’s 91����, has been named the 2020 Foresight Fellow in Molecular-Scale Engineering. 

Researchers used neutron scattering at 91����’s Spallation Neutron Source to investigate bizarre magnetic behavior, believed to be a possible quantum spin liquid rarely found in a three-dimensional material. QSLs are exotic states of matter where magnetism continues to fluctuate at low temperatures instead of “freezing” into aligned north and south poles as with traditional magnets.