Five labs from the Far West Region produced or collaborated on 14 of the 43 R&D 100 winners from the Federal Laboratory System.

Often described as the scientific world’s “Oscars of Invention,” or the “Nobel Prize of Applied Research,” the R&D 100 is an international competition that seeks to recognize the 100 most technologically significant new products each year. Past winners that have become part of our everyday life are: Polaroid film, the flash cube, the ultrasound machine, the digital watch, anti-lock breaks, automated bank teller machine, the liquid crystal display (LCD), the halogen lamp, the fax machine, touch sensitive screens, the color graphics printer, the nicotine patch, the Kodak Photo CD, Taxol anti-cancer drug, the chemical lab-on-a-chip, etc. Judges look for breakthrough products or processes that promise to improve people’s lives through technical advances. Federally funded research accounted for nearly half of the awards given in 1997.

Fed Labs Win 43 of R&D 100
The Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) took the lion’s share with 7 regional winning projects. DOE-Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) claimed 3 of the top 100, DOE-Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory producing 2 awards, and DOE-Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the DOD’s Naval Air Warfare Center at China Lake both winning 1 award each.

DOE-Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Since 1978, LLNL researchers have won 68 of the R&D awards. In the latest round of winners, the technologies, researchers, programs, and collaborating partners that won awards are:

• “Absolute Interferometer,” significantly improves the measurement accuracy of spherical and non-spherical optical surfaces. A project from the team of Gary Sommargren, Eugene Campbell, Don Phillion and Frank Snell, from the Laser Programs Department.
• “Ultra Clean Ion Beam Sputter Deposition System,” is a high-precision instrument that significantly advances the state of the art in low-defect, thin-film deposition technology produced by Lab researchers Don Kania, Patrick Kearney, Richard Levesque, and Steve Vernon from Laser Programs; with researchers Alan Hayes, Boris Druz, Edward Osten, Renga Rajan, Hari Hedge, and Manny Lakios, from Veeco Interments Inc., of Plainview, NY.
• “Femtosecond Laser Materials Processing,” enables full computer control of high-precision laser machining of all materials (i.e., steel, ceramics, heart and dental tissue). A technology from the research team of Brent Stuart, Michael Perry, Hoang Nguyen, Steve Herman, Paul Armstrong, Paul Banks, Michael Feit, Alexander Rubenchik, Booth Myers, Howard Powell, and Joseph Sefcik, from Laser Programs.
• “Multiscale ElectroDynamics (MELD),” a simulation software with the potential to revolutionize the design process for opto-electronics by creating a “virtual optical bench” by Richard Ratowsky, Jeffrey Kallman, Robert Deri and Michael Pocha, from Physics & Space Technology.
• “Oil Field Tiltmeter,” a tool that detects slight changes in rock cracks, down to 10,000 feet, in oil wells. A collaboration from Lab researchers Steven Hunter, Carl Boro, and David Castillo, from Energy Programs; with researchers Robert Conant, James Ward and Eric Davis, from Pinnacle Technologies.
• “Ultra High Gradient Insulator,” a breakthrough insulator technology to improve the ability of insulators to resist breakdown by up to a factor of 4, from the team of Steven Sampayan, Ted Wieskkamp, Dave Trimble, Bob Stoddard, and Dave Sanders, from Defense & Nuclear Technologies and Laser Programs; with researchers Mike Krogh, Steve Davis and Bryan Schultz, from the Allied Signal Federal Manufacturing & Technology plant.
• “High Performance Storage System,” that increases both the performance and capacity of storage systems for large-scale computation by a factor of 100 or more. A collaborative entry with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Los Alamos, Sandia, and IBM Global Government Industry as participating institutions; with Lab researcher Richard Watson, from Computations.

• “RuberCycle™,” a bioprocess for waste tire recycling, developed by researchers Bob Romine, Lesley Snowden-Swan, Harley Freeman, Gary Neuenschwander, and Margaret Romine.
• “Refractory Corrosion Monitor,” from PNNL’s David Lamar and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Paul Woskov, is a device to monitor the thickness of insulation in hi-temp furnaces while in operation.
• “Production of Chemicals from Biologically Derived Succinic Acid,” from the team of John Frye, Sarah Burton, Yong, and former PNNL researcher Todd Werpy. A process that converts a renewable resource “corn” into chemicals used to make polymers and products that were previously made from crude oil and natural gas. PNNL has won 38 awards since 1965.

• “Advanced Tensiometer,” measures how tightly water is held by soil above an aquifer.
• “Nanocrystalline Composite Coercive Magnet Powder” Alloys for permanent magnets having a nanocrystalline composite microstructure. A collaboration with DOE-Ames

• “The Constricted-Plasma Source,” a rugged, clean, low-cost device with potential for applying thin films on everything from microchips to plastic wrap developed by the team of André Anders of LBNL’s Accelerator and Fusion Research division, Michael Rubin, Environmental Energy Technology division, and Michael Dickinson of the Engineering Division.

• “Continuous Emissions Monitor (CEM),” commercially named TraceAIR ™, produced by a collaborative effort from Michael Seltzer of NAWCWPNS, Gary Meyer of Thermo Jarrell Ash (TJA) Corp., and Larry Sotsky of the U.S. Army Armaments Research Development & Engineering Center (ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal. The CEM provides real-time measurement of toxic metals emissions in incinerator stack gasses.