Enabling Capabilities

Enabling Capabilities

The DOE Office of Science (SC) is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the U.S., providing more than 40 percent of total funding in this area. Sandia has active research programs funded by the SC Offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Biological & Environmental Research (BER), and Fusion Energy Sciences (FES). This work is foundational to many mission areas at Sandia, from energy, to nuclear weapons, to national security generally. The Office of Science is renowned for its ability to build and operate user facilities to enable fundamental research that are open to researchers from around the world on the basis of peer reviewed proposals.

Basic Energy Sciences

The Basic Energy Sciences (BES) program supports fundamental research focused in the natural sciences—in areas of direct relevance to DOE missions within chemical, condensed matter, materials, and geological sciences. The BES program plans, constructs, and operates major scientific user facilities to serve researchers worldwide. Sandia has significant BES activities in materials sciences, chemical sciences, and geosciences, hosting the Solid State Lighting Science (SSLS) Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) as well as two BES user facilities—the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT, joint with Los Alamos National Laboratory) and the Combustion Research Facility (CRF).

• Materials Science and Engineering
• Chemical Sciences
• Geosciences Research Program

Biological and Environmental Research

The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program advances environmental and biomedical knowledge that promotes national security through improved energy production, development, and use; international scientific leadership that underpins the nation’s technological advances; and research that improves the quality of life for all Americans. In addition, BER develops and delivers the knowledge needed to support the President’s National Energy Plan.

Fusion Energy Sciences

The Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program is the national basic research effort in advanced plasma science, fusion science, and fusion technology—the knowledge base needed for an economically and environmentally attractive fusion energy source. As a major contributor to this effort, Sandia’s Fusion Technology Program studies the interactions of plasmas and materials, the behavior of materials exposed to high-heat fluxes, and the interfaces of plasmas and fusion reactor walls.

Advanced Scientific Computing Research

The Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program supports world-class, high-performance computing and networking infrastructures as well as supporting fundamental research in mathematical and computational sciences to enable researchers in DOE scientific disciplines to analyze and predict complex phenomena for scientific discovery. ASCR’s programs have helped establish computation as a third pillar of science (along with theory and physical experiments). Sandia has extensive ASCR programs in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, and in SciDAC (Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing) partnerships that link ASCR programs to activities throughout the Office of Science including BES, BER, and FES.

Enabling Capabilities Publications

• Expanding the Potential for Saline Formations: Modeling Carbon Dioxide Storage, Water Extraction and Treatment for Power Plant Cooling 1.07 MB
• Storing Carbon Dioxide in Saline Formations: Analyzing Extracted Water Treatment and Use for Power Plant Cooling 1.31 MB
• Study of the Use of Saline Formations for Combined Thermoelectric Power Plant Water Needs and Carbon Sequestration at a Regional Scale: Phase II Report 4.56 MB
• The Goals of Energy Policy: Professional Perspectives on Energy Security, Economics, and the Environment 2.2 MB
• Study of the Use of Deep Saline Formations for Combined Thermoelectric Power Plant Water Needs and Carbon Sequestration at a Regional-Scale: Phase I Report 1.8 MB

Enabling Capabilities News

Sandia Invents Versatile High-Temperature Seebeck and Electrical Conductivity InstrumentSandia post­doc Harlan Brown-Shaklee (in the Electronic, Optical, and Nanostructured Materials Dept.) and staff members Jon Ihlefeld (also in the Electronic, Optical, and Nanostructured Materials Dept.) and Peter Sharma (in the Materials Physics Dept.) have built a high-temperature Seebeck and electrical conductivity measurement instrument that can operate over broad atmosphere and temperature conditions. The Seebeck [...]

Louisiana Blue Ribbon Commission on Bayou Corne SafetySecretary Stephen Chustz, from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LADNR), asked David Borns (in Sandia’s Geotechnology and Engineering Dept.) to serve on the blue ribbon commission (BRC) that was formed by Governor Bobby Jindal to provide science-based public safety recommendations regarding the sinkhole in the Bayou Corne area. The BRC will help LADNR continue [...]

Sandia Quantum Transport Article Was the 12th Most Downloaded Paper from AIP’s Applied Physics Letters in FebruaryResearch on topological insulators (TIs) has drawn intensive interests. The type-II InAs/GaSb heterostructure, due to its unusual alignment of the conduction and valence band edges of InAs and GaSb, is predicted to be a two-dimensional (2D) TI. Historically, type-II InAs/GaSb heterostructures have been extensively studied for infrared applications. With the new prediction as a 2D [...]