Sow's Ears to Silk Purses: Pitchblende as a Quantum Mineral

Program Description
In 1898 the Curies discovered radium by separating one milligram from ten tons of pitchblende, which still contaminates Gif-sur-Yvette after they threw it away out the door of their lab. Now, after several years of similarly arduous work, we have found that charge inhomogeneities in UO2, from both O- and photo-doping, aggregate and self-organize into a Coherent Polaron Quantum Phase that has demonstrated a number of unique properties.