Dante G. Quirinale

Dante Quirinale is a scientist in the High Temperature Sample Environment group in the Neutron Sciences Division.  He obtained his B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from SUNY Buffalo and his Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics from Iowa State University. He joined ORNL in 2017 as a postdoctoral research associate and converted to staff in 2019.

Dante leads the development of the Neutron Sciences levitation program for high temperature and metastable materials, which includes support of the existing offline and NOMAD aerodynamic levitators, the Neutron Electrostatic Levitator (NESL), construction and testing of the Creep Electrostatic Levitator (CrESL), subcontractor support of the aero-acoustic levitator (AAL) SBIR, support of the Iowa State University Solution Electrostatic Levitator (SESL) project, preliminary implementation of acoustic levitation systems, and ongoing development of high pressure-high temperature hybrid systems such as the high pressure electromagnetic levitator.  He actively investigates current high temperature metrology, implementing novel thermometry and heating instrumentation, and supports in the development of unique high temperature systems across both HFIR and SNS.  In addition, he provides user support for high temperature experiments, chairs the High Temperature Steering Committee, develops safety protocols, and functions as a safety reviewer for high temperature experiments.

Research interests include the development of techniques for processing and characterization at high temperature, including levitation furnaces, advanced thermometry, and unconventional furnace materials.  He is particularly interested in developing instrumentation to study materials that have experimentally challenging yet important phase spaces, such as molten salts and ultra-high temperature ceramics.  Research programs also focus on the in-situ studies of the kinetics of metastable phase transitions and novel properties of the liquid phase (including magnetic ordering and prenucleation clustering).