Warming a crystal of the mineral fresnoite, ORNL scientists discovered that excitations called phasons carried heat three times farther and faster than phonons, the excitations that usually carry heat through a material.
Laboratory Director Thomas Zacharia presented five Director’s Awards during Saturday night's annual Awards Night event hosted by UT-Battelle, which manages ORNL for the Department of Energy.
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.