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Mapping, Making, and Modeling Materials Features In This Issue - Volume 35 Number 3, 2002 |
Editorial:
Materials Research at ORNL: A Distinguished Past, A Bright Future |
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HTML
User Centers Help U.S. Industry Industries from across the United States send people to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Temperature Materials Laboratory (HTML), and those people often leave with more than they dreamed of receiving. More... |
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HFIR's
Cold Neutrons for New Materials Insights ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) has been a tool for materials researchers for nearly four decades. Far from over the hill, the HFIR, which is in the midst of an upgrade program, figures highly in the Laboratory's strategy for becoming a world leader in neutron science. More... |
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SNS
Instruments for Materials Research Although one of the most fascinating aspects of the Spallation Neutron Source is its creation of neutron beams, the big payoff for scientists when it comes on line in 2006 will be the arrival of those neutrons at a suite of state-of-the-art instruments. More... |
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Leading
Nanofab Lab for ORNL Planned for operations to begin at the end of 2004, just before the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) goes online, the Department of Energy's Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at ORNL will be a productive union of neutron science and the emerging field of nanoscale research and development (R&D). More... |
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Mapping
Materials in 3D Using X rays Some crystalline grains hiding as deep as 1 millimeter (mm) beneath the mosaic of grains making up the surface of a hot-rolled polycrystalline aluminum sample have lost their privacy. More... |
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Seeing
the Unseen in a New Microscope Lab The need to observe the structures and spatial distribution of nanosized catalytic particles to aid in the development of highly selective catalysts is a driving force behind the construction of a new ORNL laboratory for advanced microscopy... More... |
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Environmentally
Quiet Building The Advanced Materials Characterization Lab is being designed with six (and possibly eight) instrument rooms; each instrument will be operated from an adjacent control room. More... |
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Award-Winning
Characterization Tool ORNL's Ken Liu and Jy-An Wang show the spiral notch torsion test system they developed with Inventure Laboratories of Knoxville, which received an R&D 100 Award in 2002 from R&D magazine as one of the 100 most significant innovations of the year. More... |
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From
Ordinary Alloys to Extraordinary Materials |
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Niche
Applications for ORNL's Nickel Aluminides Although ORNL-developed nickel aluminides are replacing steel components in niche applications, in one case they will likely help the steel industry. More... |
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ORNL
Breaks into Metallic Glass Field Bulk metallic glasses have unusual mechanical strength and magnetic properties, as well as resistance to wear and corrosion. Although they have been around for four decades, only recent developments at ORNL and elsewhere have made bulk metallic glasses practical and affordable for various applications. More... |
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Materials
Processing Using ORNL's Powerful Lamp No genie ever comes out of ORNL's plasma arc lamp, but this powerful lamp shows promise for magically transforming metallic powders into thin sheets of metal that are even less likely to deform when exposed to high temperatures. More... |
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Making
Better Billets Before the plasma arc lamp was installed at ORNL, Craig Blue developed an infrared heater containing tungsten halogen lamps. He showed Komtek, Inc., of Massachusetts that this technology could extend the life of dies used to make artificial joints, such as hips and knees. More... |
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Synthesizing
Polymers to Make Sensors ORNL and University of Tennessee (UT) researchers propose that a large variety of polymers be synthesized on platforms smaller than a match tip, to determine which combinations make highly sensitive, selective, and affordable sensors. More... |
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Nanoporous Materials for Novel Catalysts From clothes to drugs to gasoline, almost half the products that fuel our economy could not have been made without catalystssubstances that initiate key chemical reactions and enable them to proceed at lower temperatures or pressures than would be possible otherwise. More... |
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Exploring Carbon Nanotubes Imagine an ultra-lightweight material that could lend incredible strength to a spacecraft and at the same time provide an array of other functions. For example, this material could serve as a superconductor that carries electricity with virtually no resistance. More... |
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Self-Assembled
Film for Aligning Carbon Nanotubes Carbon nanotubeslined up and sticking up like brush bristleshave been grown in the laboratory of Sheng Dai and postdoctoral scientist Zhengwei Pan, both in ORNL's Chemical Sciences Division. More... |
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How Do Carbon Nanotubes Grow? How and why do carbon nanotubes grow during laser ablation and chemical vapor deposition? What role do metal catalyst particles play in inducing carbon atoms to form structures that grow into nanotubes? More... |
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Carbon Nanotubes and Chemistry It looks like soot, but it's really a tangled mass of black carbon nanotubes mixed with metal and amorphous carbon particles. More... |
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Improving Superconductors and Semiconductors ORNL researchers have been developing novel materials that could lead to high-temperature superconducting wires and smaller, faster semiconductor chips that speed up data processing and flow. More... |
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Unlocking Mysteries of the Nanoscale Besides their negative electrical charge, electrons offer two other positive benefitsthey have spin and act as tiny magnets. In the random access memory (RAM) of today's computers, information is stored by electronic charges, but all the information is lost each time the device's power is cut off, so the computer must be rebooted, which takes time. More... |
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Neutron Science, Nanoscience, & New Simulations Peter Cummings, director-designate of the Nanomaterials Theory Institute of the Department of Energy's Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), to be located at ORNL, says "Theory, modeling, and simulation will be essential tools for both the interpretation of data produced by neutron scattering and the guidance of experimental measurements of phenomena at the nanoscale." More... |
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Predicting a Model Weld An ORNL group seeks to integrate various computer models of aspects of welding into one model that will be useful to the welding industry. More... |
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Novel Materials for Homeland Security Emergency responders and soldiers wearing respirators and protective suits often find that enduring the gear can be as tough as doing the work. More... |
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Hot Spotter: Detecting Radiation from Suspicious Packages A sensitive radiation detector that could easily be held in your hand or attached to your belt has been designed and built by Oak Ridge researchers. More... |
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Faster Computers through Carbon Foam? When smaller and smaller transistors are packed on a computer chip, electrons don't have to travel as far, making the chip run faster. As the power density of the chip increases, it can do more and more calculations per second. Faster chips make faster computers. More... |
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