Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have used advanced microscopy to carve out nanoscale designs on the surface of a new class of ionic polymer materials for the first time. The study provides new evidence that atomic force microscopy, or AFM, could be used to precisely fabricate materials needed for increasingly […]
Super Stable Garnet Ceramics May Be Ideal for High-Energy Lithium Batteries
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have discovered exceptional properties in a garnet material that could enable development of higher-energy battery designs. The ORNL-led team used scanning transmission electron microscopy to take an atomic-level look at a cubic garnet material called LLZO. The researchers found the material to be highly stable […]
Discovery Spurs Development of Novel Oxide Electronic Devices
Complex oxides have long tantalized the materials science community for their promise in next-generation energy and information technologies. Complex oxide crystals combine oxygen atoms with assorted metals to produce unusual and very desirable properties. Because their electrons interact strongly with their environments, complex oxides are versatile, existing as insulators, metals, magnets, and superconductors. They can […]
Improving Plant-Based Batteries with Neutrons
When Orlando Rios first started analyzing samples of carbon fibers made from a woody plant polymer known as lignin, he noticed something unusual. The material’s microstructure – a mixture of perfectly spherical nanoscale crystallites distributed within a fibrous matrix – looked almost too good to be true. “I thought, this looks like a material that […]
ORNL-grown oxygen ‘sponge’ presents path to better catalysts, energy materials
OAK RIDGE, Tenn, Aug. 28, 2013 — Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new oxygen “sponge” that can easily absorb or shed oxygen atoms at low temperatures. Materials with these novel characteristics would be useful in devices such as rechargeable batteries, sensors, gas converters and fuel cells. Materials […]
ORNL finding goes beyond surface of oxide films
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 13, 2013 — Better batteries, catalysts, electronic information storage and processing devices are among potential benefits of an unexpected discovery made by Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists using samples isolated from the atmosphere. Researchers at the Department of Energy lab learned that key surface properties of complex oxide films are unaffected […]
New All-Solid Sulfur-Based Battery Outperforms Lithium-Ion Technology
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today’s electronics. The ORNL battery design, which uses abundant low-cost elemental sulfur, also addresses flammability concerns experienced by other chemistries. “Our approach is a […]
ORNL’s awake imaging device moves diagnostics field forward
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 4, 2013 — A technology being developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory promises to provide clear images of the brains of children, the elderly and people with Parkinson’s and other diseases without the use of uncomfortable or intrusive restraints. Awake imaging provides motion compensation reconstruction, which removes […]
Paving the Way for Larger, Safer Lithium Ion Batteries
Looking toward improved batteries for charging electric cars and storing energy from renewable but intermittent solar and wind, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed the first high-performance, nanostructured solid electrolyte for more energy-dense lithium ion batteries. Today’s lithium-ion batteries rely on a liquid electrolyte, the material that conducts ions between the negatively charged […]