{"id":5246,"date":"2026-05-06T20:29:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/5246\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T20:29:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:29:06","slug":"fulbright-scholar-from-poland-studies-actinide-physics-at-idaho-national-laboratory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/5246\/","title":{"rendered":"Fulbright Scholar from Poland studies actinide physics at Idaho National Laboratory"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Adam Piotr Pikul<\/a> of the Polish Academy of Sciences, there is always more to understand about the basic physics of uranium<\/a> atoms. That\u2019s why Pikul, a professor at the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research in Wroc\u0142aw, is studying actinide quantum materials<\/a> at the Idaho National Laboratory<\/a> (INL) on a Fulbright Senior Award<\/a>. Actinides are a group of 15 radioactive elements, including uranium.\n<\/p>\n

At a Glance:<\/p>\n

Adam Piotr Pikul awarded Fulbright Senior Award for research
\nCollaboration with Krzysztof Gofryk<\/a> at Idaho National Laboratory
\nResearch supported by U.S. Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences<\/p>\n

At INL, Pikul is collaborating with Krzysztof Gofryk, director of C-QAST. They are studying how electrons behave in uranium-based compounds and evaluating their potential as quantum materials to advance energy and information technologies. Pikul hopes to deepen the scientific community\u2019s understanding of advanced magnetic quantum phenomena, potentially influencing future quantum technologies<\/a>. Gofryk\u2019s research on actinide quantum materials is primarily supported by the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s Office of Science, specifically within the Basic Energy Sciences program.\n<\/p>\n

Pikul is visiting from Wroclaw, a city of about 630,000 residents and upwards of 100,000 college students in southwest Poland. His research project, \u201cEmergent Electronic States in Uranium Based Quantum Materials,\u201d is supported by a one-year scholarship.<\/p>\n

Highly selective and prestigious, the Fulbright Senior lets Polish scholars employed at Polish higher education or research institutions conduct independent research or teaching projects at host institutions in the U.S. Pikul\u2019s time at INL is hosted through the Center for Quantum Actinide Science and Technology (C-QAST)<\/a> and the Glenn T. Seaborg Institute<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Focused on the \u2018whys\u2019<\/p>\n

Heavy actinide elements like uranium and thorium, found at the bottom of the periodic table (atomic numbers 89-103), have a lot of nucleons and electrons in motion at the subatomic level. That movement looks like random activity at room temperature. But at super-cold temperatures, the atoms slow down and their interactions become easier to observe.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cINL has special capabilities to study actinide quantum materials, including the lowest temperatures and highest magnetic fields in Idaho,\u201d Gofryk said.<\/p>\n

The discoveries they make and the data they collect contribute to the simulation tools that researchers use to predict the behavior of advanced nuclear fuels .\u201cThis is pure physics,\u201d Pikul said. \u201cWe use magnetism as a tool to probe basic properties of various materials, including nuclear materials.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Pikul said basic understanding of materials leads to better modeling. \u201cExamining the crystal structure, whether it\u2019s metal or not, it\u2019s heat conduction properties \u2026 these are the most complex elements. We\u2019re focused on the \u2018whys.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Before he returns home, Pikul plans to visit Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he intends to use the Advanced Light Source synchrotron facility; and Los Alamos National Laboratory, home of the Magnetic Field Laboratory Pulsed Field Facility.\n<\/p>\n

Many collaborations<\/p>\n

Specializing in magnetism and low-temperature physics, Pikul has collaborated with scientists from over a dozen countries. He took part in a 20-month postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany, courtesy of a Humboldt Foundation fellowship. He has studied at the University of Rennes in France several times.\n<\/p>\n

Pikul enjoyed at three-month residency at INL in 2021, funded by the Kosciuszko Foundation, which promotes closer ties between Poland and the U.S. through educational and cultural exchanges. The choice to apply for a Fulbright grant was strategic but simple: He wanted more access to the specialized research infrastructure available at INL\u2019s Quantum Actinide Science Lab. The U.S. Department of State\u2019s Fulbright Program, with its strong ties to U.S. institutions, international prestige and exceptional support for scholars, was a natural fit.\n<\/p>\n

Pikul said he recognized INL\u2019s equipment and expertise could help him get further into the \u201cwhys\u201d that have always interested him. His earlier work at INL resulted in a 2022 paper published in Physical Review Materials titled, \u201cCompetition of Magnetocrystalline Anisotropy of Uranium Layers and Zigzag Chains in\u00a0UNi0.34 Ge2\u00a0Single Crystals.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

After returning to Poland, he said he wanted to do something bigger. He applied for the Fulbright and learned in January 2025 that his proposal had been accepted.\n<\/p>\n

Uranium was the first actinide discovered<\/a>, in 1789, followed by thorium approximately 40 years later. But it wasn\u2019t until the mid-20th century that Glenn Seaborg formulated his actinide hypothesis, opening the door to synthesizing transuranic elements such as neptunium, plutonium, americium and curium.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 1950s, they could describe properties, but that was about all they could do,\u201d Pikul said. \u201cNow we are much deeper. We can delve into various subtle microscopic effects, see how the atoms vibrate and determine the first principles of fuels and compounds.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

One of the goals<\/a> of the Department of Energy\u2019s Genesis Mission<\/a>, announced in February, is \u201cbuilding the quantum ecosystem that will power discoveries \u2014 and industries \u2014 for decades to come.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

With high-powered computing and artificial intelligence, the possibilities for unlocking atomic secrets have grown dramatically. Gofryk and Pikul are at the front end of the process, providing the detailed subatomic data that will allow researchers to use AI to discover new patterns and analyze new insights.\n<\/p>\n

This story was provided by Idaho National Laboratory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Adam Piotr Pikul of the Polish Academy of Sciences, there is always more to understand about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4377,4378,4379,4380,4381,9,4382,4383],"class_list":["post-5246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-actinide-quantum-materials","tag-adam-piotr-pikul","tag-fulbright-senior-award","tag-idaho-national-laboratory","tag-krzysztof-gofryk","tag-poland","tag-quantum-technologies","tag-uranium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}