Researchers at Lawrence Berkley and Lawrence Livermore National Labs were multiple winners of R&D 100 Awards, which are known as the "Oscars of Invention."
Livermore Lab researchers have won five awards and Berkeley Lab scientists nabbed four awards for their efforts in developing breakthrough technologies with commercial potential.
The awards will be presented Nov. 1 during a black-tie dinner at the SeaWorld Conference Center in Orlando, Fla. In all, DOE’s national laboratories and facilities won 36 R&D 100 Awards this year.
Livermore Lab won for a new photonic method for producing protective coatings, a system that precisely adjusts a laser beam's radiant distribution or intensity profile, the first plastic material capable of efficiently distinguishing neutrons from gamma rays, a new way to distrubute the hot plasma exhaust of magnetic fusion energy sources and a higher capacity portable optical velocimeter. The lab served as the principal developer in four of the awards, while the fifth award was a joint submission. This year's awards bring the lab's total to 142 since it began competing in 1978.
Berkeley Lab's awards were for device that can perform remote chemical analysis on another planet, a second that shapes X-ray beams with submicron accuracy, a third that sprays biological molecules onto a mass spectrometer for microchip analysis and a fourth that generates reactor-quality neutron beams from a compact source. The four awards in 2012 raise the total of Berkeley Lab's R&D 100 wins to 62, plus two Editors' Choice Awards.