This portfolio was organized to group innovations that might not be categorized in the other portfolios. Instruments are full systems integrated to perform complex electrical or mechanical work. Sensors are devices that detect, measure, or locate a physical property. Electronics are devices that manipulate electrons or control electrical energy, and the manufacturing processes that fabricate them.
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The trade journal R&D World Magazine recently announced the winners of the awards, often called the “Oscars of innovation,” recognizing new commercial products, technologies and materials that are available for sale or license for their technological significance.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers have earned four awards among the top 100 inventions worldwide. With this year’s results, the Laboratory has now collected a total of 186 R&D 100 awards since 1978.
Submitted through LLNL’s Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO), these awards recognize the impact that Livermore innovation, in collaboration with industry partners, can have on the U.S. economy as well as globally.
Decades of cutting-edge laser, optics and plasma physics research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) played a key role in the underlying science that the semiconductor industry uses to manufacture advanced microprocessors. Now a new research partnership led by LLNL aims to lay the groundwork for the next evolution of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, centered around a Lab-developed driver system dubbed the Big Aperture Thulium (BAT) laser.
LLNL plasma physicists, Brendan Reagan and Jackson Williams, are the project’s co-lead principal investigators. The project includes scientists from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; ASML San Diego; and the Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (ARCNL), a public-private research center based in the Netherlands.
Funded through DOE’s Unlocking Lasting Transformative Resiliency Advances by Faster Actuation of power Semiconductor Technologies (ULTRAFAST) program, LLNL researchers (in Engineering) will develop an optically-controlled semiconductor transistor to enable future grid control systems to accommodate higher voltage and current than state-of-the-art devices. (Award amount: $3,000,000) while LLNL licensee Opcondys will develop a light-controlled grid protection device to suppress destructive, sudden transient surges on the grid such as those caused by lightning and electromagnetic pulses. (Award amount: $3,178,977)
LLNL researchers have developed a TDLAS-based, standalone, real-time gas analyzer in a small form-factor for continuous or single-point monitoring. The system can analyze multiple gases with ultra-high sensitivity (ppm detection levels) in harsh conditions when utilizing wavelength-modulation spectroscopy (WMS).
LLNL’s novel approach combines 2-color spectroscopy with CRDS, a combination not previously utilized.