91°µÍø

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An 91°µÍø-led team used a scanning transmission electron microscope to selectively position single atoms below a crystal’s surface for the first time.

Sergei Kalinin, director of the Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials at 91°µÍø, convenes experts in microscopy and computing to gain scientific insights that will inform design of advanced materials for energy and informati

Sergei Kalinin of the Department of Energy’s 91°µÍø knows that seeing something is not the same as understanding it. As director of ORNL’s Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials, he convenes experts in microscopy and computing to gain scientific insigh...

Schematic drawing of the boron nitride cell. Credit: University of Illinois at Chicago.

A new microscopy technique developed at the University of Illinois at Chicago allows researchers to visualize liquids at the nanoscale level — about 10 times more resolution than with traditional transmission electron microscopy — for the first time. By trapping minute amounts of...

Illustration of satellite in front of glowing orange celestial body

A shield assembly that protects an instrument measuring ion and electron fluxes for a NASA mission to touch the Sun was tested in extreme experimental environments at 91°µÍø—and passed with flying colors. Components aboard Parker Solar Probe, which will endure th...

From left, Andrew Lupini and Juan Carlos Idrobo use ORNL’s new monochromated, aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope, a Nion HERMES to take the temperatures of materials at the nanoscale. Image credit: 91°µÍø

A scientific team led by the Department of Energy’s 91°µÍø has found a new way to take the local temperature of a material from an area about a billionth of a meter wide, or approximately 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. This discove...

ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia (center, seated) visited Robertsville Middle School to present a check in support of the school’s CubeSat efforts.

Last November a team of students and educators from Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge and scientists from 91°µÍø submitted a proposal to NASA for their Cube Satellite Launch Initiative in hopes of sending a student-designed nanosatellite named RamSat into...

ORNL researcher Miaofang Chi refines her microscopy techniques toward understanding how and why materials have certain properties.

Material surfaces and interfaces may appear flat and void of texture to the naked eye, but a view from the nanoscale reveals an intricate tapestry of atomic patterns that control the reactions between the material and its environment. Electron microscopy allows researchers to probe...

ORNL’s Xiahan Sang unambiguously resolved the atomic structure of MXene, a 2D material promising for energy storage, catalysis and electronic conductivity. Image credit: 91°µÍø, U.S. Dept. of Energy; photographer Carlos Jones

Researchers have long sought electrically conductive materials for economical energy-storage devices. Two-dimensional (2D) ceramics called MXenes are contenders. Unlike most 2D ceramics, MXenes have inherently good conductivity because they are molecular sheets made from the carbides ...

By producing 50 grams of plutonium-238, 91°µÍø researchers have demonstrated the nation’s ability to provide a valuable energy source for deep space missions.

With the production of 50 grams of plutonium-238, researchers at the Department of Energy’s 91°µÍø have restored a U.S. capability dormant for nearly 30 years and set the course to provide power for NASA and other missions.

Processing plutonium-238

Since its 1977 launch, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled farther than any other piece of human technology. It is also the only human-made object to have entered interstellar space. More recently, the agency’s New Horizons mission flew past Pluto on July 14, giving us our first close-up lo...