Lab earns seven 'Oscars of Invention'

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Nov 2, 2006 | by Betsy MasonSTAFF

LIVERMORE -- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scooped more R&D 100 awards this year for new technologies with commercial potential, including a pocket-sized explosives detector and a city- scale motion detector, bringing the lab's total to 113 awards since 1978.

The research and development awards, sometimes called the "Oscars of Invention" are given by the trade journal R&D Magazine for the world's top 100 industrial innovations each year.

"We're very pleased that Livermore Lab won more R&D 100 awards this year than any other institution in the country," said Lee Younker, deputy director for Science and Technology. "We are also happy that our technologies have relevance for assisting U.S. industry and for helping in homeland security to protect the country."

Livermore tied its record of seven awards, a feat it also accomplished in 1987, 1988, 1997 and 1998. Department of Energy labs won 41 awards this year, including four for Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

Three of the Livermore lab's award-winning projects could potentially help with homeland security, including a pocket-sized explosives detector. Called the Easy Livermore Inspection Test for Explosives, the single-use, disposable test can detect more than 30 explosives.

The two-by-three-inch cards cost $25 or less, making them practical for airport screeners as well as military personnel hunting for bombmakers.

A new, high-resolution radiation detector that can sense gamma rays and neutrons could prove instrumental in finding even small amounts of illicit nuclear materials. It also could help monitor the safety of stored nuclear material.

Lab scientists also have engineered a real-time motion imagery system that can track up to 8,000 moving objects in a city-sized field of view for about 10 percent of the cost of other systems of this scale.

The lab teamed up with the University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory to develop a planet-detection technique that already has been used to spot at least one new planet far from our solar system. The technique relies on a $14,000 optical tool that can do the same job as conventional devices that run about $4 million. Lab physicist David Erskine who helped develop the technique, is currently using it to hunt for planets at Mount Palo Observatory near San Diego.

Another new award-winning device can change the color, or wavelength, of light. This could be useful for converting common infrared laser light into ultraviolet light, which is better at cutting ceramics and plastics, or green light for cutting copper.

Data mining will get a boost from another new advance from scientists at the lab's computing center. With data often coming in terabyte-sized packages, scientists will benefit from this new technology that can handle enormous and complex data sets to fully extract all the useful information needed for a given experiment. The lab has six patents on this technology.

A new speedy computer language translator called babel can cheaply break down the barrier between different software libraries. In the past, scientists had to create a translation code for each application.

The Berkeley lab won awards for a free-floating submersible ocean carbon sensor, a solar-cell semiconductor material, an ultrasonic sensor to ensure paper quality and a neutron generator.