News Releases

SLAC researchers studying laser-driven proton acceleration introduced a self-replenishing water sheet target to address the inefficiency of replacing targets after each laser pulse. The new target had an unanticipated side effect, resulting in a naturally focused, more tightly aligned proton beam.

By editing the polymers of discarded plastics, chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found a way to generate new macromolecules with more valuable properties than those of the starting material. Upcycling may help remedy the roughly 450 million tons of plastic discarded worldwide annually, of which only 9% gets recycled; the rest is incinerated or winds up in landfills, oceans or elsewhere.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory joined forces with EPB of Chattanooga and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to demonstrate the first transmission of an entangled quantum signal using multiple wavelength channels and automatic polarization stabilization over a commercial network with no downtime.

The successful trial of this innovation marks another step toward the eventual creation of a quantum internet that could prove to be more capable and secure than existing networks.