ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Competing in an international pool of universities, corporations and government labs, Sandia National Laboratories researchers captured five R&D100 Awards this year. One entry also won the R&D100’s Green Technology Special Recognition Gold Award.
R&D Magazine presents the awards each year to researchers whom its editors and judges determine have developed the year’s 100 most outstanding advances in applied technologies.
The awards, with their focus on practical impact rather than pure research, reward entrants on their products’ design, development, testing and production. They were dubbed “the Oscars of invention” by now-retired Chicago Tribune science writer Jon Van.
Sandia’s winning entries:
CO2 Memzyme
CO2 Memzyme is an ultra-thin membrane that is the first cost-effective technology for carbon dioxide separation and capture to meet and exceed the Department of Energy’s (DOE) targets for helping to reduce the threat of climate change. This invention also won the R&D 100 contest’s Green Technology Special Recognition Gold Award. Principal investigators (PIs): Sandia researchers Susan Rempe and Jeff Brinker and University of New Mexico research associate professor Ying-Bing Jiang. Sandia’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) office provided initial money for this project. The DOE’s Basic Energy Sciences, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency‘s Joint Science and Technology Office and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research also provided funding.
LED Pulser
LED Pulser uses light-emitting diodes instead of expensive lasers to provide high-brightness, rapidly pulsed, multicolor light for scientific, industrial or commercial uses. The Pulser’s small LED (light-emitting diode) source permits better detection of ignition via high-speed imaging and already has resulted in better understanding of injection, combustion and emissions formation in diesel engines. The work was supported by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office. PI: Chris Carlen.
Integrated Circuit Identification
ICID, or Integrated Circuit Identification authenticates integrated circuits, detects counterfeit electronics and verifies individuals’ identities and their transactions using a unique device signature and cryptographically secure challenge-response protocol. PIs: Jason Hamlet, Todd Bauer and Lyndon Pierson (emeritus). The technology’s development was funded by the LDRD program.
Lightweight Distributed Metric Service
Lightweight Distributed Metric Service (LDMS) monitoring software provides detailed awareness of the system-wide performance of high performance computers and applications in production environments. PIs: Jim Brandt, Ann Gentile and Benjamin Allan (all from Sandia) and Tom Tucker, Narate Taerat and Nichamon Naksinehaboon (all from Open Grid Computing Inc. in Austin, Texas). Early funding was provided by the LDRD program and then by DOE.
Silicon Carbide JFET Switch
6.5kV Enhancement-Mode Silicon Carbide JFET Switch: A low-loss power switch based on a novel silicon carbide junction field-effect transistor will improve the efficiency of next-generation power conversion systems used in energy storage, renewable energy and military applications, as well as data center power distributions. PI: Stan Atcitty in collaboration with United Silicon Carbide Inc. and DOE.
The awards were announced in Las Vegas on Nov. 13.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corp., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Neal Singer, (505) 298-5141, nsinger@sandia.gov