Feature Stories

When a swat team trains multiple times a week, running repeated live-fire drills, the noise can be intense. Even with premium hearing protection, the sound and pressure can damage hearing over time, contributing to traumatic brain injuries for officers and disorienting civilians nearby. If only there were a way to curb that danger.

Those kinds of problems are exactly what the New Mexico Small Business Assistance program has helped tackle for 25 years with support from Sandia National Laboratories and, since 2007, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The program, created in the year 2000 helps small businesses solve critical challenges by providing technical assistance and expertise that they don’t have access to anywhere else, at no cost to them.

This year, two of the businesses Sandia helped aim to make the nation safer with their products: Ridgeline Engineering and Manufacturing, which is working to reduce hearing damage from firearms, and Aperi Computational Mechanics Consulting, which is making critical engineering simulations faster and more affordable.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory has released a new version of its advanced slicing software, ORNL Slicer 2, which accelerates and simplifies the creation of large 3D printed parts.

A historic legacy now translates to pioneering capabilities in electric grid technology at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The secure electrical infrastructure that enabled World War II nuclear advances under the Manhattan Project has evolved into the ideal test bed for modernizing the nation’s grid for the 21st century. One of the first technologies being validated within this field-testing site is a grid management platform built around coordinated resource “hubs,” or clusters of resources that work together to meet utility needs by streamlining equipment energy management, communication and controls. 

Starting January 12, through March 16, 2026, researchers will have the opportunity to apply to be the first users on the Discovery supercomputer, arriving in 2028 at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Discovery will play a key role in the Genesis Mission — DOE’s bold new endeavor to advance American leadership in AI and quantum computing. Information and instructions for submitting applications are available at the Discovery Center for Application Readiness (CAAR) — Call For Proposals website.

The partnership began by adapting robotic arc welding into a new form of large-scale metal 3D printing, enabling complex geometries, multi-material deposition and dramatically shorter production timelines. Joint research led to breakthroughs in real-time monitoring, materials qualification and multi-robot coordination, culminating in a system capable of depositing up to 100 pounds of metal per hour. Outcomes from the collaboration are already being applied across U.S. industry, including rapid fabrication of large molds, tooling and replacement parts that would traditionally require months or years to source overseas.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used specialized tools to study materials at the atomic scale and analyze defects at the materials’ surface. Results of their research help to better understand these materials used for advance electronics, enabling innovative data storage and computation methods.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory partnered with the University of Tennessee to develop a secure, affordable sensing device that delivers unprecedented real-time insight into electric grid behavior. The innovation, called a Universal GridEdge Analyzer, recently won an R&D 100 Award as one of the world’s top inventions.

The Idaho National Laboratory has changed the world for more than 75 years through work in nuclear energy, national security and other innovative technologies. From early nuclear reactor demonstrations to establishing tomorrow’s robust electrical grid, here are 10 of the most impactful INL achievements that benefit our nation and the world:

Scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have achieved a historic breakthrough in nuclear energy by launching full-scale production of enriched fuel salt for the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE)—the world’s first test of a molten chloride salt fast reactor.