Neutron Science In the News – 2010
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December
4 ORNL scientists named American Physical Society Fellows
EurekAlert 12/17
David Christen, David Geohegan, Xun-Li Wang and William Weber were named APS fellows in recognition of their outstanding contributions to physics. APS fellowship is limited to no more than one half of one percent of the society's membership.
Christen, a researcher in ORNL's Material Sciences and Technology Division, was recognized by the APS for his sustained discovery and leadership in understanding of superconductive materials, especially their current conduction and vortex state properties. He serves as leader of the Superconductivity and Energy Efficient Materials group and has worked at ORNL since 1974. Christen holds a doctorate in physics from Michigan State University. He and his wife, Sandy, live in Oak Ridge; they have three adult children.
Geohegan has worked at ORNL since 1987 and is a Distinguished Research Staff Member in the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences Division where he studies the fundamental growth processes of carbon nanotubes and other nanomaterials as well as their optical interactions. He was elected to the APS in recognition of his pioneering work in understanding and controlling nonequilibrium growth processes of thin films and nanomaterials through real-time laser spectroscopy, imaging and plasma diagnostic investigations. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He and his wife, Marian, live in West Knoxville.
Wang, a member of ORNL's Neutron Scattering Science Division, serves as the lead instrument scientist for VULCAN, a state-of-the-art engineering diffractometer at the SNS. Wang was cited by the APS for his sustained contributions in neutron diffraction studies and his leadership in the design and construction of a versatile engineering diffractometer at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source.Wang arrived at ORNL in 1992 and joined SNS in 1999. He received his doctorate from Iowa State University and his undergraduate degree from Beijing University, both in physics. He lives in Knoxville with his wife Haiyi and their daughter Camilla.
Weber, a University of Tennessee-ORNL Governor's Chair, was recognized by the APS for his seminal contributions and scientific leadership in the materials physics of defects, defect processes, ion-solid interactions and radiation damage processes in ceramics.Weber arrived at UT/ORNL in May from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he worked as a researcher since 1977. He is the editor or co-editor of five conference proceedings, and the author or co-author of more than 340 journal articles, seven book chapters, 108 peer-reviewed conference papers and 53 technical reports. He holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He lives in Knoxville with his wife Yanwen Zhang.
Neutron source at ORNL sets another record
Knoxville News Sentinel 12/6
The Spallation Neutron Source has achieved another record, this time setting a new standard for reliability. According to Ian Anderson, associate lab director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and director of the SNS, the accelerator-based neutron source last Thursday operated at the 1-megawatt power level with 100 percent reliability. 'For 24 hours, it didn't go down, not even for a minute or a second,' Anderson said, emphasizing that most research accelerators — even those far more mature than the SNS — have reliability statistics of about 85 percent. In September 2009, the SNS first achieved the magical level of 1 megawatt beam power, establishing it as a very powerful research tool.
Bredesen Dedicates Joint Research Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Newswise 12/3
Governor Phil Bredesen today joined officials from the University of Tennessee and the Department of Energy in dedicating a new state-funded research facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The event celebrated the opening of the Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences, a 31,000 sq. ft. facility that contains 82 offices and seven laboratories. Located adjacent to the Spallation Neutron Source, the Joint Institute serves as an intellectual hub for the neutron science community and as a gateway that provides researchers access to the world’s most powerful neutron scattering facilities. Through the Joint Institute, UT faculty have joint appointments with the University and ORNL as part of one of the world’s leading centers of materials research. Governor Bredesen was joined in the dedication by UT Interim President Jan Simek, UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy Cheek, and ORNL Director Thom Mason. Their remarks expressed appreciation to the Governor for his support of the UT-ORNL partnership over an eight-year period that Mason predicted “in the years to come will be viewed as one of the most important periods in the history of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.”
November
Oak Ridge High School students know how to create success in elite science-competition
Knoxville News Sentinel 11/30
Students in the Oak Ridge High School thesis program, an advanced research class, have been consumed with research for almost six months, and now their hard work has begun to pay off. Five seniors - a team of three, Yajit Jain, Carlos del-Castillo-Negrete and Scotty Chung, and a team of two, Yiwei Li and Mattie Lloyd - were named regional finalists in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, while three other seniors were regional semifinalists - Sam Worley, Sam Snodgrass and Patrick Tae. The Siemens Competition is administered by College Board and funded by the Siemens Foundation to provide college scholarships to high school students who succeed in the math, science or technology. "We worked on the SNS (Spallation Neutron Source) accelerator," Chung said, where his team developed an automated method to minimize beam loss. "The ultimate goal would be to have an application for people in the control room to use," del-Castillo-Negrete said. The other team did something different. "We worked on fabricating new materials for magnetic cooling," Li said. Lloyd continued, "It's more efficient and an environmentally friendly alternative to vapor compression."
ORNL's Research Reactor Revamps Veteran Neutron Scattering Tool
Lab Manager Magazine 11/11
The Cold Triple Axis spectrometer, a new addition to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor and a complementary tool to other neutron scattering instruments at ORNL, has entered its commissioning phase. The CTAX uses "cold" neutrons from the HFIR cold source to study low-energy magnetic excitations in materials. Cold neutrons are slower than their "thermal" neutron counterparts, and thus perfect for probing low-energy dynamics. The instrument, which moves by way of air pads on an epoxy surface known as the "dance floor," is one of only two of its kind in the United States. Following commissioning, it will be available for users this coming spring. "Neutrons have unique properties that make them ideally suited to study the complex atomic-scale interactions that govern the macroscopic physical and chemical properties of materials," said Jaime Fernandez-Baca, leader of the Triple Axis group.
October
The Day of Reckoning Has Arrived”: Appropriators to Decide on Key Isotope For Space Probes
NewDesignWorld 10/27
When Congress returns to Washington later this month appropriators must make a critical decision about the future of U.S. planetary robotic missions. The Obama Administration has requested –for the second time - $30 million to initiate the production of Plutonium-238 (Pu-238) which has been used in radioisotope power systems on 26 space missions...the House Appropriations Committee reports that only one-third of the $30 million request be funded...The report explained that Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor and Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor would be capable of producing up to two kilograms of Pu-238 every year.
Celebrating Science and Engineering on the National Mall
“SNS Simulator” a Hit at Inaugural USA Science and Engineering Festival
The White House - Office of Science and Technology Policy 10/27
After joining President Obama in welcoming students to the White House Science Fair last Monday, OSTP Director John P. Holdren spent Saturday morning with fellow OSTP staffers and an estimated half-a-million other visitors on the National Mall, reveling in the USA Science and Engineering Festival. Under beautiful blue skies, science, mathematics, and engineering literally had their day in the sun, with more than 1,000 displays and demonstrations that educated, entertained, and inspired children and adults alike.
ORNL chief thrives on intellectual challenge
Knoxville News Sentinel 10/20
Thom Mason has been director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory for more than three years, and that's probably long enough for him to have a good feel for the job and for others to have a feel for his performance. When Mason first got the job, back in the summer of 2007, there were folks inside and outside the lab who wondered if he had the experience and the scientific breadth to run the U.S. Department of Energy's largest science lab. He'd been hugely successful as director of the Spallation Neutron Source, but there were folks who questioned whether a 42-year-old neutron scientist was ready for the challenge of overseeing research programs that touch on every branch of science and engineering...Directing the Spallation Neutron Source helped prepare him for managing the national laboratory, he said. "SNS was pretty broad. In a way, it's a microcosm of the lab," Mason said. "Because, in terms of science, it had a lot of breadth. You've got biology, chemistry, materials science, engineering, condensed matter physics, so it had a scientific breadth that's compared to the breadth in the lab."
ORNL's Research Reactor Revamps Veteran Neutron Scattering Tool
Newswise 10/19
The Cold Triple Axis spectrometer, a new addition to Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor and a complementary tool to other neutron scattering instruments at ORNL, has entered its commissioning phase. The CTAX uses "cold" neutrons from the HFIR cold source to study low-energy magnetic excitations in materials. Cold neutrons are slower than their “thermal” neutron counterparts, and thus perfect for probing low-energy dynamics. The instrument, which moves by way of air pads on an epoxy surface known as the "dance floor," is one of only two of its kind in the United States. Following commissioning, it will be available for users this coming spring. “Neutrons have unique properties that make them ideally suited to study the complex atomic-scale interactions that govern the macroscopic physical and chemical properties of materials,” said Jaime Fernandez-Baca, leader of the Triple Axis group.
SNS: Building toward billion-dollar science
Knoxville News Sentinel 10/13
The Spallation Neutron Source was designed and built at a cost of $1.4 billion. It became operational in the spring of 2006 with big-time aspirations for materials research at a new level. Since then there have been steady increases in the beam power to produce more and more neutrons to explore the structure and properties of materials, as well as more sophisticated instruments to diversify the studies that can be conducted. Six national laboratories participated in the design and development of the SNS, and many millions of dollars are spent annually to operate the ridge-top science center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Any way you look at it, the Spallation Neutron Source is a big deal. But is it living up to the hype and the oh-so-high expectations? That's not so clear. During a recent interview, I asked ORNL Director Thom Mason - who directed the SNS during construction and earlier operations before ascending to the lab helm in mid-2007 - if he thought the billion-dollar project was producing billion-dollar science. Mason didn't shy away from my questions or the expectations. "The expectations should be high," he said. "This is the largest investment in materials research that has ever been made, anywhere in the world."
Brookhaven research instrument gets new life at Oak Ridge reactor
Knoxville News Sentinel 10/10
A new research instrument is being commissioned at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor. According to info from ORNL, the cold triple-axis spectrometer was originally at Brookhaven National Lab's High Flux Beam Reactor and then moved to Oak Ridge and refurbished for use at the HFIR. The instrument uses slower-moving cold neutrons to study low-energy excitations in materials, the lab said. It reportedly is one of only two of its kind in the U.S. and should be available for use by researchers in spring 2011.
September
Neutrons helping researchers unlock secrets to cheaper ethanol
Nanowerk News 9/15
New insight into the structure of switchgrass and poplars is fueling discussions that could result in more efficient methods to turn biomass into biofuel. Researchers from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Georgia Tech used small-angle neutron scattering to probe the structural impact of an acid pretreatment of lignocellulose from switchgrass. Pretreatment is an essential step to extract cellulose, which can through a series of enzymatic procedures be converted into sugars and then ethanol. The findings, published in Biomacromolecules, could help scientists identify the most effective pretreatment strategy and lower the cost of the biomass conversion process. "My hope is that this paper and subsequent discussions about our observations will lead to a better understanding of the complex mechanisms of lignocellulose breakdown," said co-author Volker Urban of ORNL's Chemical Sciences Division. A key finding is that native switchgrass that has been pretreated with hot dilute sulfuric acid undergoes significant morphological changes. While the data demonstrate that the switchgrass materials are very similar at length scales greater than 1,000 angstroms, the materials are profoundly different at shorter lengths. An angstrom is equal to 1/10th of a nanometer...Small-angle neutron scattering measurements were performed at ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor and analyzed using the unified fit approach, a mathematic model that allows simultaneous evaluation of the different levels of hierarchical organization that are present in biomass.
August
High-value outage for Oak Ridge reactor
Knoxville News Sentinel 8/30
The longest outage of the year is under way at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor, one of the world's premier research facilities, and there's a bunch of activities planned to address concerns and help extend the reactor's lifetime. "There are 182 work activities planned for this 54-day outage," ORNL research reactors chief Ron Crone said via e-mail. "In addition to the routine testing and preventive maintenance activities, there are several larger scope activities planned." According to Crone, here are some major activities planned: - On the HFIR cold source, installation of two new beam room vacuum stations will be completed to improve reliability. Refurbishment of the helium expansion engines will be performed using a new crane system to improve the safety and reliability of this once a year activity. - The new pool water storage tank pipe installation will be completed. - One of the two new diesel generators will be set into its permanent location. - One of the three secondary coolant pump motors will be replaced. - The HFIR plant process computer will be upgraded. - Annual inspection of the reactor vessel and its components will be completed. - Hydrostatic proof test of the reactor vessel will be performed; this test occurs about every 4 years and is done to ensure the integrity of the reactor vessel.
Supernovae Might Be Directing Life's Development Throughout the Universe
Popular Science 8/18
A special property of Earth's organic molecules could be caused by supernovae, a new study says — suggesting that life’s building blocks were created not on Earth, but elsewhere in the cosmos. When a star collapses, it ejects a slew of particles that include electron antineutrinos, which are right-handed. Nuclear astrophysicist Richard Boyd and his colleagues suggest these particles would interact with right-handed nitrogen atoms inside amino acid molecules. Boyd says it might be possible to run experiments using intense neutrino sources, such as the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to test this theory. If it’s true, it could mean that Earth’s amino acids did not arise on Earth, but elsewhere in the universe. We are all star stuff, indeed.
Al Gore at the Spallation Source
Knoxville News Sentinel 8/11
Former Vice President Al Gore visited Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Tuesday and reportedly looked at a number of lab technologies for potential investment. Gore is a partner with the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, which has invested significantly in green technologies. He was not available for interviews during the visit, but a lab spokesman said Gore was briefed on ORNL's research on climate change and nuclear technologies, among other things. Gore played a significant role in gaining approval for construction of the Spallation Neutron Source at ORNL, but Tuesday was reportedly his first visit to Oak Ridge since the $1.4 billion science project was completed in 2006.
July
Reactor restart set for July 28 at ORNL
Knoxville News Sentinel 7/23
ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor, shut down since July 10 for maintenance and refueling, is scheduled for restart on the 28th. That's according to Ron Crone, the lab's reactors chief, who I talked with earlier today. "Everything has been relatively routine," Crone said of the outage. The most significant activity during the down time was receiving two new "reactor pool water storage tanks," which are being installed and connected, the ORNL official said. The tanks hold the water from the reactor pool when there's a draw down for certain types of maintenance or work requiring access to the research reactor's core area, he said. Since 2000, the lab has been using a set of temorary tanks, Crone said. "They were never intended to be permanent," he said. A couple of new 40,000-gallon tanks arrived recently, following a three-day, wide-load trip from Missouri, Crone said. The tanks are double-walled, stainless steel, and are located outside the reactor building, he said. So far this year, there have been 335 scientific users at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, where neutron-scattering experiments are performed. Based on that number, the lab will exceed its goal for the year -- 360 users -- during the next fuel cycle, according to Crone.
June
Pulsing Intensely
Lab Manager Magazine 6/22
Four years after a keystroke produced the first neutrons, the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) has moved into a new phase, both as a neutron research facility and as one of the scientific community's foremost user centers for materials research. "We now have the world's most intense pulsed neutron source, a fact that by itself is very attractive to anybody who wants to use neutrons to investigate materials," says Stephen Nagler, chief scientist of ORNL's Neutron Scattering Science Division. Adding to the facility's appeal is the realization that, with every new operating cycle, the SNS is putting more instruments with brand new capabilities online. Twelve instruments, some as large as houses, are currently available in or adjacent to the mammoth target building, with seven more under construction or in the process of coming online. Users are flocking to the new instruments. Typically, once an SNS instrument becomes available, user requests for research time run about a factor of three greater than the amount of time actually available. Proposals for some of the newer instruments are running six or seven to one.
Opportunities at light source and neutron facilities
EurekAlert 6/15
New intense sources of radiation at national facilities in Chicago, New York, and Tennessee coupled with the next generation of sensitive detectors are allowing geochemists like John Parise to gather images and data on minerals in one second that would take years of equivalent exposure on conventional laboratory x-ray facilities. John Parise, professor, mineralogist and solid-state chemist at Stony Brook University, New York, discussed this and other new light source systems available to geochemists today at this year's Goldschmidt Conference, hosted by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The enhanced power of x-rays and pulsed neutrons -- especially at the new Spallation Neutron Source facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- give geochemists more sensitive tools to detect, characterize and understand the mineral components and the contaminants they absorb or release. Identifying these minerals and how they change with varying conditions such as temperature, relative humidity and irradiation hold the key to understanding the evolution of planetary surfaces, including that of our Earth.
May
Lithium borate glass for rad detectors
Knoxville News Sentinel 5/14
Oak Ridge reseachers are evaluating different types of lithium borate glasses for a couple of projects, including use in radiation detectors for nonproliferation, defense and homeland security applications. According to Lynn Boatner, a group leader ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division, the detector project is supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Boatner is collaborating with the lab's Zane Bell and Jayson Hayward, who has a joint appointment at ORNL and the University of Tennessee. Boatner said the glasses are made by mixing boron oxide (B2O3) with lithium carbonate, which decomposes in the crucible (at about 1250 degrees) to form lithium oxide and that combines with the boron oxide to form the desired glass. The glasses can be used to detect penetrating radiation via the cerenkov effect, Boatner said. Cerenkov radiation is produced when charged particles are moving faster than the speed of light in a medium, whether it's water or liquid or glass, he said. The cerenkov effect produces the blue glow that one sees in the pool of water that houses the High Flux Isotope Reactor at ORNL.
Study of animal tumors may bring more precision to cancer treatment
WBIR 5/14
"Let's look in your ears," Dr. Amy LeBlanc said while examining a cat at UT Veterinary Clinic. "What a good boy. Yes." Spider Monkey the cat certainly has a human personality -- and his tissue is kind of like a human's too -- which is why tissue samples from UT Veterinary Clinic patients may soon help their two-legged friends. Once removed, tumors are sliced up and turned into slides, then dyed and read by pathologists. "You're looking for disorder in the nuclei of the cells. Sometimes it's very difficult to tell if cells are normal or abnormal," said Oak RIdge National Lab Research & Development Staff Member Dr. Trent Nichols. Nichols practiced for two decades as a physician specializing in internal medicine, and then recently completed a PhD in theoretical physics. Now that he works at ORNL, he's hoping to combine the two degrees, using the Spallation Neutron Source to better differentiate between healthy and cancerous tissue.
'Lab Day' at ORNL
Knoxville News Sentinel 5/6
As part of National Lab Day festivities held Wednesday, ORNL hosted about 120 students and their science teachers from six area middle schools (Vine, Jefferson, Harriman, Coalfield, Clinton and Bearden). The visitors got a feel for science in the works -- meeting with researchers, taking a look at the Spallation Neutron Source and high-end supercomputers, and learning about things like superhydrophobics and forensic anthropology.
Hendrick Construction Completes Oak Ridge National Laboratory Expansion
dBusinessNews 5/5
Hendrick Construction, Inc. finished a 14,000-square-foot expansion project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, upgrading lab space at one of the world’s premier research facilities. The Tennessee project created 13 new labs to support scientific research conducted at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), the world’s most powerful pulsed source of neutrons for the study of materials. Scientific understanding of the molecular structure of materials is critical to the development of stronger, lighter, and cheaper compounds for a variety of commercial, industrial and other applications.“This was a tough project that was built to exacting specifications in order to provide a flexible research environment,” said Roger Hendrick, president of Hendrick Construction. “We’re excited to contribute to the growth of this important facility.” The project required the installation of various instruments and controls, as well as complex chemical storage, electrical and ventilation systems. The labs will serve various needs, including X-ray, wet chemistry, magnetic materials characterization, protein crystallography and neutron optics. The flexible space was constructed to adapt to new research needs without additional capital investment. The renovation project is surrounded by other operational space on the second floor of the Spallation Neutron Source Central Lab and Office Building. The project required careful planning and coordination to avoid disruption of ongoing operations and to ensure the work was conducted safely. “The availability of these new labs will certainly enhance the ability of our neutron scattering user community to perform research at the SNS,” said Oak Ridge National Laboratory Neutron Sciences Director Ian Anderson.
SNS getting bigger all the time
Knoxville News Sentinel 5/5
Hendrick Construction of Charlotte, N.C., announced this week that it had completed work on 13 new research labs in the Central Lab and Office Building at the Spallation Neutron Source, The labs will greatly expand and diversify the capabilities, covering about 14,000 square feet on the second floor of the big building, which also houses offices for many of the SNS workers. "We were extraordinarily pleased with the job that they did," SNS operations chief Frank Kornegay said of Hendrick. Kornegay said the work, valued at about $4 million, took place in a "very challenging location," with space broken into a number of fire zones.
Restart near for High Flux Isotope Reactor
Knoxville News Sentinel 5/3
The High Flux Isotope Reactor is going through its final testing following a lengthy outage for maintenance, repairs and upgrades, and the ORNL research facility is likely to reach full power gain on Wednesday (May 5) a.m. That's the word this evening from Ron Crone, the research reactors chief at the Oak Ridge lab. HFIR has been shut down since March 15 for one of its two lengthy outages durng the year for extensive maintenance projects.
April
Boosting Batteries For Electric Cars
Forbes 4/29
Gasoline beat out electricity as the prime power source for cars in the early 1900s. The problem was the battery. Electric cars are trying to make a comeback in the early 2000s. The problem is the battery. One excuse: "In energy storage, we have a much bigger problem," says Claus Daniel, a research scientist and project director in the materials science and technology division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Oak Ridge happens to have a contraption that can see where others can't. It's the world's brightest source of neutrons, called the Spallation Neutron Source. It speeds protons to 90% of the speed of light and smashes mercury atoms to break off neutrons. Beams of neutrons can then be directed at materials, including whole working batteries, where they penetrate deep into their targets. The way the neutrons bounce off atoms inside tells researchers what is going on in there. As they understand better, they may be able to tweak the chemistry to make the battery last longer. "It will give us totally new insight into what's going on in the inside of a battery," says Daniel. "The level of detail you can see is eye-opening."
Sleeping with neutrons
Knoxville News Sentinel 4/23
Thousands of scientists visit Oak Ridge National Laboratory every year, with many of them in town to do experiments at the Spallation Neutron Source or the nearby nanoscience lab known as the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences. With a career-changing experiment in the balance, some reseachers want to be nearby around the clock. That's the reason for a new $8.9 million mini-hotel that's under construction at ORNL just a few hundred yards from the world-class scientific facilities on Chestnut Ridge. The new Guest House will have 47 units, a mix of single and double rooms, according to info from the laboratory. Dell Morgan of ORNL's Facilities Development Division said the architectural design was done by benefield*richters of Knoxville, and construction, which started in February, is being handled by Blaine Construction, also of Knoxville.The lab said the rooms will be equipped with the "usual amenities," including TV, microwave ovens and wireless Internet access. The proximity to the SNS will also allow guests to have access to the research facility's fitness center and cafeteria.Occupancy is expected by early 2011.
Nuclear Security Push Bleeding Cryogenic Science Dry
New Scientist 4/19
Helium-3 is invaluable for some scientific instruments. But supplies have been used up in making security systems to detect dangerous nuclear materials, and production can't be increased. On Thursday, a House subcommittee will try to pin down what went wrong and how to fix the problem..."There are labs in Germany and Japan that have half-built instruments and can't buy neutron detectors," says Ron Cooper of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Oak Ridge is planning a second large array of neutron detectors for its Spallation Neutron Source. The first used 4000 litres of helium-3, but that much gas won't be available again. Lithium and boron also can be used in neutron detectors, so Oak Ridge is developing a lithium-based instrument. However, it will be less sensitive than one based on helium-3.
International Team Discovers Element 117
Yubanet.com 4/6
An international team of scientists from Russia and the United States, including two Department of Energy national laboratories and two universities, has discovered the newest superheavy element, element 117. The team included scientists from the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research (Dubna, Russia), the Research Institute for Advanced Reactors (Dimitrovgrad), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "The discovery of element 117 is the culmination of a decade-long journey to expand the periodic table and write the next chapter in heavy element research," said Academician Yuri Oganessian, scientific leader of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at JINR and spokesperson for the collaboration. The team established the existence of element 117 from decay patterns observed following the bombardment of a radioactive berkelium target with calcium ions at the JINR U400 cyclotron in Dubna. The experiment depended on the availability of special detection facilities and dedicated accelerator time at Dubna, unique isotope production and separation facilities at Oak Ridge, and distinctive nuclear data analysis capabilities at Livermore. "This is a significant breakthrough for science," LLNL director George Miller said. "The discovery of a new element provides new insight into the makeup of the universe and is a testimony to the strength of science and technology at the partner institutions." "This collaboration and the discovery of element 117 demonstrates the fundamental importance of scientists from different nations and institutions working together to address complex scientific challenges," ORNL Director Thom Mason added. The two-year experimental campaign began at the High Flux Isotope Reactor in Oak Ridge with a 250-day irradiation to produce 22 mg of berkelium. This was followed by 90 days of processing at Oak Ridge to separate and purify the berkelium, target preparation at Dimitrovgrad, 150 days of bombardment at one of the world's most powerful heavy ion accelerators at Dubna, data analysis at Livermore and Dubna, and assessment and review of the results by the team. The entire process was driven by the 320-day half-life of the berkelium target material.
ORNL research reactor down until May 5
Knoxville News Sentinel 4/2
The High Flux Isotope Reactor at ORNL will be shut down until May 5. It is one of two extended outages scheduled during the year for major repairs and maintenance. Ron Crone, the research reactors chief, said the reactor was shut down March 15, and one of the major items on the agenda is to install a refurbished primary coolant pump and motor. This is third of four to be reworked in recent years as part of ongoing upgrades at the 45-year-old reactor. Crone said the new pump has already been installed and the redone motor is supposed to arrive on April 9. The last of the four pumps to be reworked will remain in place for one more fuel cycle and then be taken out for refurbishment, he said.Work also is planned for the reactor's pressurizer pumpers. Work will continue upgrades on a long-running effort to replace components of the annunciator system that is tied to alarms on dozens of different process parameters.
March
Scientists to Levitate Drops of Liquid to Study Glass
Live Science 3/29
Physicists are building a levitation chamber to suspend a drop of liquid in mid-air and watch its atoms as it cools into glass. The machine should help clarify the mystery of glass, which is a puzzling state where matter is more like a liquid than a solid. Physicists want to better understand what happens to the atoms in a material when it transitions from a liquid to a glass...That's where the levitation chamber comes in. The $1.65 million Neutron Electrostatic Levitation Chamber will be set up at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. "We've used glasses since 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, but we still don’t understand the process – how it goes from a liquid to a glass," said physicist Kenneth Kelton of Washington University in St. Louis. "It's one of the most interesting dynamical processes anywhere around." Kelton, the team leader, and his colleagues Takeshi Egami of Oak Ridge and the University of Tennessee, Alan Goldman of Iowa State University, and Xun-li Wang of Oak Ridge, hope to have the device up and running in about three years.
Neutron scattering society honors Mook with Shull Prize
Article Ant 3/26
Herbert A. Mook Jr., a UT-Battelle Senior Corporate Fellow at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been awarded the 2010 Clifford E. Shull Prize by the Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA). The NSSA recognized Mook with its top award for his "outstanding contributions to the study of magnetism, superconductivity, and quantum phenomena in matter with neutrons." Since 1965, Mook has spent his distinguished career at ORNL, where he has expanded his neutron scattering research to investigate the interaction of magnetism and superconductivity. Among Mook's diverse range of experiments utilizing neutrons, he and collaborators have studied the nature of the magnetic structure and fluctuations in high-temperature superconductors using ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor.
DOE Extends UT-Battelle Contract to Manage Oak Ridge National Lab
Lab Manager 3/23
The U.S. Department of Energy has extended the contract for the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute to co-manage Oak Ridge National Laboratory for another five years. Energy Secretary Steven Chu was joined by Gov. Phil Bredesen, UT Interim President Jan Simek and Battelle President Jeff Wadsworth in announcing the new contract on Tuesday. UT-Battelle, a joint venture between the two institutions, first won the management contract for the lab on April 1, 2000. The contract was renewed in April 2005. "I'm extremely pleased by Secretary Chu's announcement today," Bredesen said. "The success of the partnership between UT and Battelle has brought our state world-class expertise in research, high-performance computing, nanotechnology and other areas of science. This announcement ensures Tennessee will be well-positioned to continue to attract research investments and other economic benefits generated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory." ORNL's modernization included a major upgrade in science and technology facilities. The most prominent is the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source, the world's most powerful pulsed neutron accelerator used in the study the structure of materials at the molecular level.
Giant 'microscope' will use neutrons to study glass transition
Washington University Newsroom 3/19
The National Science Foundation has awarded $1.65 million to a project led by Washington University in St. Louis physicist Ken Kelton to build an electrostatic levitation chamber that will be installed at the Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Using neutrons as a probe, the instrument will allow scientists to watch atoms in a suspended drop of liquid as the drop cools and solidifies. Kelton, PhD, the Arthur Holly Compton Professor in Arts & Sciences and chair of physics at Washington University, has many plans for the new instrument, but is particularly eager to see what it can tell him about a phase transition called the glass transition.
Expanding Research Facility Supports Visiting Scientists
Lab Manager Magazine 3/12
Since beginning operations in 1966, ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor, known among the research community as "HFIR," has provided a uniquely powerful and versatile resource tool for visiting scientists from industry, academia and other national laboratories. The research reactor, now operating at 85 megawatts, not only generates the most intense neutron flux of any research reactor in the world, but also is home to a broad selection of instrumentation used to explore the structure and dynamics of materials. In 2009, more than 250 guest scientists conducted research at HFIR in areas ranging from physics to materials science to biology. Although the total was the largest in HFIR's history, the neutron scattering instruments in the reactor's user program consistently receive three times more user requests than can be accommodated.
PartTec to market SNS-developed neutron detector system
EurekAlert 3/11
PartTec, an Indiana-based manufacturer of radiation detection equipment, has signed an agreement to manufacture and market an advanced neutron detector system developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Shifting Scintillator Neutron Detector system was developed for DOE's Spallation Neutron Source and High Flux Isotope Reactor complex, the world's most advanced neutron science facility. This system can determine the time and position of the neutron captured, enabling extremely accurate neutron time of flight measurements. It has large-area detector coverage, extremely low power requirements and digital communication capability, all factors that made it attractive to PartTec. "PartTec has supported the work of the Spallation Neutron Source's detector team for nearly five years with engineering, component manufacturing and management expertise," said Herschel Workman, chief executive officer of PartTec. "The detector is proving itself in the POWGEN and VULCAN instruments at the SNS." Commercial interest in the product ranges from use at other neutron science facilities to security applications such as monitoring land, air and sea shipping for the presence of fissionable material. Recently, because of constraints on helium-3 supply and the projected increasing demand, PartTec responded by re-engineering this detector system for use as an alternative to existing helium-3 detectors. ORNL researchers developed the detector system to provide the very large detector areas (up to 45 square meters in the SNS POWGEN instrument) and high rates required by the SNS.
ORNL Earns Project of Year Award from Tech Transfer Group
Newswise 3/8
A technology that can enhance collecting of data from studying the compositions on a material surface has earned the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory the Excellence in Technology Transfer Project of the Year Award from the Southeast Region of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer. ORNL also earned two Excellence in Technology Transfer Awards from the organization.The position sensitive detector allows personnel at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source to obtain a more accurate measurement of neutrons produced at the facility. Those neutrons are used to conduct neutron scattering, which is the ORNL-developed process to study the molecular structure of materials. Richard Riedel, Ronald Cooper and Lloyd Clonts of the laboratory’s neutron sciences developed the technology.
February
Foreign-born scientists say working at lab worth dealing with security
Knoxville News Sentinel 2/27
Martin Stockli, a physicist and group leader at the Spallation Neutron Source, couldn't contain his laugh when asked if Oak Ridge National Laboratory was a welcoming place for foreigners. Stockli said he spent the better part of two days recently trying to arrange entry for three Japanese scientists who wanted to study how the SNS team performed a task in eight hours that took them three days to accomplish. "It is extremely difficult to get here, especially as a foreigner," he said. "To fill out the personal information to come into Oak Ridge National Lab, you need to answer something like 35 questions, and it's really time-consuming and cumbersome. But we all do it for national security's sake. If you're American, it's easy. If you're a foreigner, it can be difficult at times." Stockli, a native of Switzerland who became a U.S. citizen in 1993 when he was on the faculty at Kansas State University, said the ORNL experience is worth the effort. "There are lots of rules and regulations, but the thing is, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a very interesting place," he said. "I definitely wouldn't like to be anywhere else."
Magnetism seen as key to superconductivity
EE Times 2/4
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are citing evidence that high-temperature superconductivity derives from the same mechanisms regardless of materials. That finding has prompted speculation that magnetic spin excitations that couple electrons is the key ingredient for superconductivity. Magnetic interactions "provide the glue that binds the electrons together," Oak Ridge lead researcher Mark Lumsden. "The pairing up of electrons is essential for the formation of the macroscopic quantum state giving rise to superconductivity." High-temperature superconductivity could result in ultra-fast electronic devices that capitalize on high-speed electrons traveling in a material whose resistance has been reduced to zero. Levitating trains, ultra-sensitive sensors called superconducting quantum interference devices and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging use superconductors. Using the Spallation Neutron Source and the High Flux Isotope Reactor, the researchers applied intense neutron beams to image single crystals of superconducting iron, tellurium and selenium materials. They also observed the same spin excitations that are believed to be the source of superconducting in copper based materials called cuprates.
New Neutron Studies Support Magnetism's Role in Superconductors
ORNL Press Release 2/2
Neutron scattering experiments performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory give strong evidence that, if superconductivity is related to a material's magnetic properties, the same mechanisms are behind both copper-based high-temperature superconductors and the newly discovered iron-based superconductors.
January
Energy Grants Seek Reliable Source for Diagnostic Aid
N.Y. Times 1/26
Amid a global shortage of a radioactive isotope used to diagnose cancer, heart disease and kidney problems, the Energy Department on Monday moved to develop two radically different sources for the material. Supplies have been short since last May, when the reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, that used to be the biggest supplier of the isotope was shut down because of a leak…Primarily a research reactor – the High Flux Reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory also produces medical isotopes.
VULCAN workshop at Spallation Neutron Source
Knoxville News Sentinel 1/20
VULCAN, one of the new research instruments at the Spallation Neutron Source, will be the topic of a workshop Thursday and Friday at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The engineering diffractometer received its first neutrons back in June and, according to ORNL neutron chief Ian Anderson, the Canadian-sponsored instrument is expected to become a staple of industrial research for years to come. Anderson said VULCAN was funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and, as such, Canada gets access to 20 percent of the beam time on the instruments (or the equivalent on other instruments). "It's one of the instruments where we expect to get a lot of interest from industry to use it," he said.
ORNL Restarts High Flux Isotope Reactor
Knoxville News Sentinel 1/7
Following a 17-day maintenance and refueling outage that spanned the holidays, the High Flux Isotope Reactor was restarted this morning. Ron Crone, Oak Ridge National Lab’s reactors chief, said the HFIR reached full power (85 mw) at 8:46 a.m. Because of the extremely cool temps (in the teens) this morning, it wasn’t necessary to use any of the four fans associated with the cooling tower during startup operations, Crone said. Crone said it was a fairly uneventful outage, with normal corrective and preventive maintenance tasks. He said lab officials are trying to use info from two brief, unplanned outages in recent months to improve operations at the 43-year-old research reactor. He said ORNL has launched one of the three projects to replace some of the reactor’s original instrument control systems. Some of those activities can be done while the reactor is operating, but other tasks have to be completed during outages, he said.
