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Sandia weighs in on new definition for kilogram

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The kilogram is losing weight and many international scientists, including some at Sandia National Laboratories, agree that it’s time to redefine it. Scientists are hoping to redefine the kilogram by basing it on standards of universal constants rather than on an artifact standard. "The idea is to replace the single master kilogram with something based on physical constants, rather than an artifact that could be damaged accidentally," says mechanical engineer Hy Tran, a project leader at the Primary Standards Laboratory at Sandia.

1 million trillion 'flops' per second targeted by new Institute for Advanced Architectures

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Preparing groundwork for an exascale computer is the mission of the new Institute for Advanced Architectures, launched jointly at Sandia and Oak Ridge national laboratories.

Sandia, Stirling Energy Systems set new world record for solar-to-grid conversion efficiency

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems have set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 on SES's "Serial #3" solar dish Stirling system at Sandia's National Solar Thermal Test Facility.

Earthquake 'memory' could spur aftershocks

DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using a novel device that simulates earthquakes in a laboratory setting, a Los Alamos researcher and his colleagues have shown that seismic waves -- the sounds radiated from earthquakes -- can induce earthquake aftershocks, often long after a quake has subsided.

Journal: Nature

The quest for a new class of superconductors

DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Fifty years after the Nobel-prize winning explanation of how superconductors work, a research team from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of Edinburgh and Cambridge University are suggesting another mechanism for the still-mysterious phenomenon.

Journal: Nature

Sandia supercomputers offer new explanation of Tunguska disaster

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The stunning amount of forest devastation at Tunguska a century ago in Siberia may have been caused by an asteroid only a fraction as large as those postulated in previously published estimates, Sandia supercomputer simulations suggest. Because there are more smaller asteroids than larger ones, the need to guard against such impacts may be greater than previously thought.

Collaboration yields 'the right glasses' for observing mystery behavior in electrons

DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team of researchers has, for the first time, viewed on a nanoscale the formation of mysterious metallic puddles that facilitate the transition of an electrically insulating material into an electrically conducting one.

Journal: Science
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Did early Southwestern Indians ferment corn and make beer?

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The belief among some archeologists that Europeans introduced alcohol to the Indians of the American Southwest may be faulty. Ancient and modern pot sherds collected by New Mexico state archeologist Glenna Dean, in conjunction with analyses by Sandia National Laboratories researcher Ted Borek, open the possibility that food or beverages made from fermenting corn were consumed by native inhabitants centuries before the Spanish arrived.

Funder: DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Meeting: Materials Research Society 2007

Inexpensive 'adaptive optics' achieved by Sandia's optical clamp

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Sandia National Laboratories has received a US patent for a new tool that efficiently but inexpensively uses a single mirror to achieve some of the same effects as adaptive optics, where individually angled mirrors correct distortions in laser beams.

Sandia supports development of US Army's new cannon system

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in California have emerged as key players in a state-of-the-art program for the US Army that focuses on the design and manufacturing of a lightweight, high-caliber, self-propelled cannon system.