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Sandia Formally Proposes To Design Accelerator Expected To Achieve High-YieldFusion

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Permission to prepare a conceptual design for an accelerator, X-1, expected to achieve high-yield fusion by imploding capsules of deuterium and tritium, has been formally requested by Sandia of DOE. The request was made after Sandia's prototype Z accelerator passed its fourth and final milestone last week, producing power, energy and heat far exceeding requirements.

Funder: DOE

Like Sticking A Balloon To A Sweater: Electrostatic Chuck To Improve Microchip Production Patented By Sandia

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A device expected to be potentially more effective than any on the market in helping cool silicon wafers during the chip manufacturing process has been patented in prototype by researchers at Sandia National Laboratories.

Funder: DOE/Sematech

Not Science Fiction Any More: Sandia Scientists Develop Quantum Mechanical Transistor

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a transistor based on quantum mechanical principles. The device is much faster than any commecial transistor in use today and is created with readily available manufacturing techniques. .

Journal: Applied Physics Letters
Funder: DOE Defense Programs

Sandia Scientist, Colleague, Suggest Meteor Plumes Causing Transient Dark Spots In Upper Atmosphere

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Calculations of a Sandia National Laboratories physicist and his Texas-based colleague may offer additional insight into a decade-old controversy as to whether up to 30,000 house-sized snowballs, or icy comets, are striking Earth each day.

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters

Sandia Labs Developing Means To Sniff Out Landmines

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Sandia National Laboratories has joined the effort to rid the planet of what some people have called its worst form of pollution -- landmines. Sandia's detection and de-mining work ranges from chemical sensitivity, backscattered x-rays, quick-hardening foam, with robotic vehicles to support the technologies.

Funder: DOD, DOE

Like A Hippopotamus Turning On A Dime: Sandia “Photonic Crystal” Bends Microwaves Around Tight Corner

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A Sandia "photonic lattice" -- a kind of artificial crystal - - has bent microwaves around 90-degree corners, within radii smaller than a wavelength, and with almost 100 percent transmission efficiency, offering promise of cheaper and more efficient communications.

Funder: Department of Energy; Sandia Laboratory-Directed Research and Development; published in Science

Sandia Creates Microtransmission; Vastly Increases Power Of Microengine

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A microtransmission the size of a grain of sand has been fabricated at Sandia National Laboratories. Occupying an area of one square millimeter, it provides a gear-down ratio of 3 million:1. Attached to a microengine (also the size of a grain of sand) it theoretically can move a one-pound object.

Funder: The US Department of Energy

Sandia Releases Nitty Gritty Details Of Downhole Oil Well Environment

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New tool used on six producing U.S. oil wells reveals stresses along sucker rod strings used to extract crude from approximately 80 percent of domestic wells. CR-ROM available free to members of petroleum industry.

Funder: DOE's National Gas and Oil Technology Partnership
Meeting: Society of Petroleum Engineers

Orbits Of Satellites, Accuracy Of Missiles Improved Merely By Shifting Weights

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A missile or space ship, spinning like a football or Olympic diver as it reenters atmosphere, can be stabilized merely by shifting weights within its shell. The method may improve orbits of satellites.

Funder: Sandia National Laboratories LDRD program

Making The Crime Scene Blink: NIJ Asks Sandia To Devlop Portable Evidence Finder

DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An evidence detection system that makes organic substances appear to blink, allows investigators to locate potential evidence like fingerprints, semen and urine more quickly and in a lighted room if necessary.

Funder: National Institute of Justice