LLNL’s Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO) serves as a focal point for the Laboratory’s engagement with industry. Our goal is to identify and leverage new economic opportunities and move those opportunities to the private sector. For example, research results from the Human Genome Project alone generated over $1 trillion in economic output, and benefits the medical, agricultural, environmental and energy sectors.
NanoFoil’s® story began in the mid-1990s, when LLNL materials scientist Troy Barbee, Jr. and then-postdoctoral researcher Timothy Weihs pooled their expertise in multilayered, ultra-thin, metallic films—known as nanolaminates—to develop improved refractive lenses for optic systems. As they explored the properties of various nanolaminates, they discovered that foils using thin stacks of aluminum and nickel exhibited near-instantaneous energy transfers when excited by a heat source.
Hydrogen is not new in the pantheon of petroleum fuel alternatives, but it remains a strong contender. It promises zero tailpipe emissions, a large driving range and fast refueling times. Many energy scientists are optimistic that hydrogen-burning vehicles will reduce the nation’s energy consumption and curb the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. “Increasing use efficiency is an important first step but may not be enough for steep reductions in petroleum dependence and greenhouse-gas emissions,” says Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist, Salvador Aceves. “We need to advance to a carbonless energy system using hydrogen fuel.”
Every year, 60,000 people are diagnosed with brain aneurysms, weakened portions of arterial vessels that create sacs of high-pressure blood. Although small, aneurysms that burst can cause massive tissue damage, stroke, and death. Current treatments continue to carry associated risks that compromise their efficiency, such as base-clamping to seal and pinch off aneurysms—which fails to treat aneurysms with wider necks—and inserting expanding metal coils to clot and disintegrate sacs—which often unravel or become compressed, leading to the recurrence of blood flow.
The continual demand for greater material strength, durability, and longevity in structural applications makes metal a constant focus and challenge for material scientists and engineers. One of the best ways to modify the mechanical and structural properties of metal is through peening, a process that uses surface impaction to produce permanent, compressive residual stress layers within a metal’s surface; once the external impact stress dissipates, the peened material retains its harder, more durable quality. Contemporary peening processes used round metallic or ceramic balls to compress a material and harden its surface.
Whether in the realm of anti-bioterrorism or cancer treatment, early detection can be the difference between life and death. Leveraging the unparalleled pathogen-detecting technology that shields Americans from the threat of bioterrorism, LLNL and Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. are in the business of transforming the world of genetic testing.
A blurred photograph results when a photo’s subject-matter changes while the camera’s aperture remains open. Similarly, transmission electron microscopy (TEM)—which shoots streams of electrons through thin slices of a specimen to reveal the specimen’s ultra-fine details—faces the challenge of capturing a crisp image at extremely high speeds and magnification. Since small-scale processes—such as the mechanisms of a virus infecting a cell—often happen at near-instantaneous speeds, researchers using TEM to discover the sequence of events in chemical reactions or biological processes must infer answers using before and after images.
Moments of great national need can prompt exceptional scientific discovery. The story of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s advancements in the arena of radiation detection materials perfectly illustrates such a success.