ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Diamonds are a scientist’s best friend. That much is at least true for physicist Andy Mounce, whose work with diamond quantum sensors at Sandia National Laboratories has earned him the DOE’s Early Career Research Award. As a scientist in Sandia’s Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, he specializes in making microscopic sensors to try […]
Category Archives: Physics
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Through the quantum looking glass
September 12, 2022 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An ultrathin invention could make future computing, sensing and encryption technologies remarkably smaller and more powerful by helping scientists control a strange but useful phenomenon of quantum mechanics, according to new research recently published in the journal Science. Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of […]
Sandia applied mathematician wins DOE Early Career Research Award
July 21, 2022 – 9:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Examination of very fine real-world data can improve the fidelity by which complex computer simulations are guided, says Sandia National Laboratories applied mathematician Pete Bosler. He investigates multiscale simulations that, integrated, could combine individual raindrops, thunderstorms and the entire global atmosphere, guided by data currently thought too fine to be used, that […]
Sandia researchers receive two EO Lawrence Awards
July 14, 2022 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories pulsed-power physicist Daniel Sinars and quantum information scientist Andrew Landahl have each received 2021 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Awards, the U.S. Department of Energy’s highest scientific mid-career honor. Sinars won in the category “National Security and Nonproliferation;” Landahl in “Computer, Information and Knowledge Sciences.” Susan Seestrom, associate laboratories director for […]
Seashell-inspired Sandia shield protects materials in hostile environments
May 3, 2022 – 11:26 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Word of an extraordinarily inexpensive material, lightweight enough to protect satellites against debris in the cold of outer space, cohesive enough to strengthen the walls of pressurized vessels experiencing average conditions on Earth and yet heat-resistant enough at 1,500 degrees Celsius or 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit to shield instruments against flying debris, raises […]
Neuromorphic computing widely applicable, Sandia researchers show
March 10, 2022 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — With the insertion of a little math, Sandia National Laboratories researchers have shown that neuromorphic computers, which synthetically replicate the brain’s logic, can solve more complex problems than those posed by artificial intelligence and may even earn a place in high-performance computing. The findings, detailed in a recent article in the journal […]
Powerful Sandia machine-learning model shows diamond melting at high pressure
January 26, 2022 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Sandia National Laboratories supercomputer simulation model called SNAP that rapidly predicts the behavior of billions of interacting atoms has captured the melting of diamond when compressed by extreme pressures and temperatures. At several million atmospheres, the rigid carbon lattice of the hardest known substance on Earth is shown in SNAP (Spectral […]
Program in fusion energy attracted interns’ eyes
December 9, 2021 – 12:12 pm
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— A bold plan paid off this past summer when Sandia National Laboratories staff members LaRico Treadwell and Khalid Hattar combined their passions for increasing inclusion of people of color with developing materials to eventually derive energy from nuclear fusion. Standing to benefit from the pilot project were three undergraduate interns from North Carolina […]
Remote high-voltage sensor unveiled at Sandia gamma ray lab
November 10, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Ever since the first human placed a bare hand on an uninsulated electric line, people have refrained from personally testing energetic materials. Even meters made of metal can melt at high voltages. Now, using a crystal smaller than a dime and a laser smaller than a shoebox, a Sandia National Laboratories team […]
This device could usher in GPS-free navigation
October 26, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Don’t let the titanium metal walls or the sapphire windows fool you. It’s what’s on the inside of this small, curious device that could someday kick off a new era of navigation. For over a year, the avocado-sized vacuum chamber has contained a cloud of atoms at the right conditions for precise […]
Sandia researcher awarded Early-Career Research Program grant
October 11, 2021 – 7:47 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Working to solve a problem, supercomputing researchers may encounter incomplete data or flawed programs. For both issues, Sandia researcher Drew Kouri has attracted interest from the broad computing community for his ability to mitigate uncertainty in both supercomputer programs and data, optimizing each to reach the best solutions. His research was awarded […]
Look who’s turning 25
September 2, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is celebrating 25 years of research conducted at its Z Pulsed Power Facility — a gymnasium-sized accelerator commonly referred to as Z or the Z machine. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, only a limited number of former leaders of the pulsed power program at Sandia will gather Friday to share […]
World’s smallest, best acoustic amplifier emerges from 50-year-old hypothesis
June 2, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have built the world’s smallest and best acoustic amplifier. And they did it using a concept that was all but abandoned for almost 50 years. According to a paper published May 13 in Nature Communications, the device is more than 10 times more effective than the earlier […]
Rare open-access quantum computer now operational
March 15, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A new Department of Energy open-access quantum computing testbed is ready for the public. Scientists from Indiana University recently became the first team to begin using Sandia National Laboratories’ Quantum Scientific Computing Open User Testbed, or QSCOUT. Quantum computers are poised to become major technological drivers over the coming decades. But to […]
Sandia nuclear physicist selected fellow of AAAS
January 13, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Susan Seestrom, associate laboratories director for advanced science and technology and chief research officer at Sandia National Laboratories, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The physicist was cited “for her pathbreaking work in nuclear physics, especially using ultra cold neutrons, and her leadership, both […]