U.S. Department of Energy Research News

21-Jun-2012
Small worlds come into focus with new Sandia microscope
Paul Kotula recently told a colleague that Sandia's new aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope (AC-STEM) was like a Lamborghini with James Bond features.

21-Apr-2011
From fork to farm
Sandia National Laboratories' food-waste composting program keeps leftovers out of the landfill.

13-Dec-2005
Light-bringer Debby Tewa provides advice about solar power to people on Indian reservations
Today, as a contractor to Sandia Labs' Sandia Tribal Energy Program, Debbie Tewa provides technical advice about maintaining photovoltaic (PV) units to people on Indian reservations who live remotely like she did as a child.

14-Apr-2005
Sandia Labs undergoes management changes
The Sandia Corporation Board of Directors has named Dr. Thomas O. Hunter President of Sandia Corporation and Director of Sandia National Laboratories, effective April 29. Hunter most recently has served as Sandia's senior vice president for Defense Programs, with oversight of the labs nuclear weapons programs.

11-Mar-2005
Shaping future
In its next-generation aircraft carrier, the Navy, with assistance from Sandia, is seeking to reduce manpower by 10 to 30 percent, but not by heaping more work on individual sailors. The goal is to use increased technology and improvements to carrier air wing flight operations, maintenance, and support functions to reduce the overall workload per sailor.

11-Mar-2005
Improving automative coating
"Clearcoats" applied over layers of automotive paint not only enhance automobile appearance, but also serve as a first line of defense against attack from moisture, acid rain, and ultraviolet radiation.

16-Sep-2004
Researchers 'redesigning' platinum
Researchers have developed a way of changing the properties of platinum by manipulating the metal at the nanoscale. The method mimics the action of photosynthetic proteins.

16-Sep-2004
Cold Molecules - New avenue to the 5th phase of matter
Using a method usually more suitable to billiards than atomic physics, researchers from Sandia and Columbia University have created extremely cold molecules that could be used as an improved first step in creating molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs).

1-Sep-2004
'Nanotractor' studies micro-scale friction
Interest in the development of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) has grown steadily during the past decade. These tiny devices, now used in such applications as auto airbag systems, inkjet printers, and display units, are attractive because they take up little space and require little or no assembly. They also are cheap to produce in batch quantities because they are made with a technology that is already mature -- the microlithography used to make silicon chips.

1-Sep-2004
'Nanotools' - Self-assembling durable nanocrystal arrays
A wish list for nanotechnologists would likely include a simple, inexpensive means of self-assembling nanocrystals into robust, orderly arrangements, like soup cans on a shelf or bricks in a wall, each separated from the next by an insulating layer of silicon dioxide.

1-Jun-2004
Agricultural biosecurity taking on increased importance
Our current agricultural food safety and security programs have provided the citizens of the U.S. the safest food production system the world has ever seen. But these programs were not designed to identify or respond to intentional acts of bioterrorism using either conventional or unconventional biological agents to contaminate our food or food processing/distribution system.

1-Jun-2004
SARS foam- Sandia foams fight SARS virus
In a series of tests conducted at Kansas State University on Bovine coronavirus (BCV) -- the internationally accepted surrogate for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus -- Sandia versions of its DF- 200 formulation fully inactivated samples in one minute or less.

1-Jun-2004
Synthetic aperture radar- MiniSAR offers promise
Weighing less than 30 pounds, Sandia National Laboratories' miniSAR (synthetic aperture radar) will be onefourth the weight and one-tenth the volume of conventional SARs that now fly on larger unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It is the latest design produced by Sandia in a history that involves more than 20 years of related research and development.

1-Jun-2004
Tag-on sensor- Eliminating 'friendly fire' during combat
Building on more than 10 years of research and development, Sandia engineers have created a radar tag sensor that can be mounted on military vehicles and is recognizable to an attack aircraft as a "friendly."

1-Jun-2004
Yucca mountain- Pursuing a license
Sandia National Laboratories scientists, engineers and technicians are performing critical experiments deep in the volcanic heart of Nevada's Yucca Mountain to provide information that will assist in a key decision as to whether to license the remote site as a permanent repository for these radioactive wastes. Our feature story looks at Sandia's role in the 20-year project.

27-Apr-2004
Sandia to lead Center of Excellence
In his State of the Union address last year, President Bush proclaimed, "our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free." Stepping up to that challenge are researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in California, which has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to lead a virtual Center of Excellence for the development of reversible metal hydrides materials.

22-Mar-2004
CRF - Measuring particulate emissions
The Department of Energy has selected Sandia to lead a Center of Excellence for the development of reversible metal hydrides materials. A key objective will be to develop materials capable of storing hydrogen safely and economically in a vehicle that can run for at least 300 miles before refueling.

17-Oct-2003
Sandia launches Chem/Bio Program web site
Addressing the need to provide information to the public on an important national security capability, Sandia National Laboratories has launched an external web site devoted to its Chemical/Biological Defense ("Chem/Bio") program.

15-Aug-2003
Microfluidic device rapidly captures and releases proteins
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory have developed a microdevice that can easily collect and release proteins in aqueous solution in under a second. The small, portable prototype device shows promise in the biotechnology arena, with capabilities targeted at near-instantaneous analysis of suspect proteins and compatibility with hand-held sensors. This microfluidic device is discussed in the July 18, 2003, issue of Science.

6-May-2002
Molecular shuttling
The Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory researchers observed molecular shuttling on a man-made membrane that mimics cellular behavior. Recurring movements may evolve into rudimentary tools of nanoconstruction. These observations were published as the cover story in the April 30, 2002, issue of the chemical and biophysics journal Langmuir.

14-Jan-2002
Sandia 'detective' solves strange case
It was a small problem: a layer of water lying flat instead of slightly bumpy as it froze on a solid. It became a larger problem when no one could explain why that might happen. The slight difference between experimental results and established expectations might have meant nothing. But possibly it was signaling a basic scientific misunderstanding concerning the interaction of water with solids -- an area of major industrial and scientific concern.

3-Dec-2001
Nanoskin
These self-assembling nanostructures�as durable as seashells�may lower costs by reducing the need for expensive manufactured devices like stress detectors, chemical analyzers, and thermometers.

10-Sep-2001
Nanotemplates for nanostructures
Coffee beans spilled upon a table form no pattern�they're a mess�their distribution dictated by the laws of chance. The same was generally believed true of atoms deposited upon a substrate. The first vision of a peaceable kingdom in which deposited atoms form orderly, controllable 2-D nanopatterns has been observed by researchers at the Sandia National Laboratories.