Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, May 2008

FORENSICS -- New weapon . . .

Fingerprints that used to escape detection could soon help point to the killer. Using a field portable system being developed by ChemImage and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, investigators at crime scenes will be able to detect latent prints on human skin. The system takes advantage of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)-based agents to visualize latent prints. A team led by Linda Lewis of ORNL’s Chemical Sciences Division is working with ChemImage to identify fingerprint components that are SERS active, which involves identifying the fingerprint components that give a Raman emission when using a SERS reagent. The ORNL team has identified a novel dielectric nanowire coated with silver as the SERS agent of choice. This material was developed at Naval Research Laboratory. The ORNL team is now assisting Naval Research Laboratory with developing a batch processing method for producing highly active silver-coated nanowires to support a robust field method of chemically imaging latent fingerprints. ChemImage, based in Pittsburgh, has a diverse portfolio of chemical imaging technologies and envisions this technology being used by law enforcement agencies nationwide. This project is funded by the National Institute of Justice. [Contact: Ron Walli, (865) 576-0226; ]

SOLAR-- More potent photovoltaics . . .

Using pulsed thermal processing, low-cost thin-film solar cells could see efficiency gains of up to 50 percent, increasing from their current level of about 8 percent to 12 percent. The trick is in using millisecond bursts of 12 megawatts available from the radiant high-density plasma arc lamp at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. While conventional single-crystal silicon solar cells can approach efficiencies of 18 percent, they are very expensive, said Ron Ott, ORNL’s program manager for solar energy technologies. Through this effort, funded by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, researchers showed they can inexpensively alter the three-layer material to create a structure with fewer defects that can lead to higher efficiencies. [Contact: Ron Walli, (865) 576-0226; ]