Sandia Labs FY22 Laboratory Directed Research & Development Annual Report

LABORATORY DIRECTED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 2022 ANNUAL REPORT FROM THE CHIEF RESEARCH OFFICER

The Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program at Sandia National Laboratories is transformative. Every mission application of the

In 2022, LDRD helped to fuel other accomplishments from the identification of Arctic microbes that contribute to the rapidly melting permafrost, to a prototype of a cold-atom interferometer that helps vehicles stay on course where GPS is not available, to a new type of rotary electrical contact for next generation large-scale wind turbines. Sandia is even investigating tiny ultra-porous crystals that could transform cancer treatments. It’s the questions of today asked by scientists and engineers that lead to the answers our nation needs. Sandia’s LDRD program is also motivational. It encourages highly talented team members to innovate and grow as experts by coordinating with others on multi-disciplinary projects. It also is a proven technical talent pipeline recruitment tool as it allows bright minds at academic institutions to partner with national laboratories like Sandia on leading-edge research projects. This step into our laboratories encourages many other steps toward permanent employment or other collaborative endeavors. It has been my honor to be the Chief Research Officer at Sandia. I am not only proud of Sandia’s LDRD Program, but I am continuously inspired by what is achieved through it. It takes a spark of an idea to help achieve a long-term impact, and we see them every day.

future relies on the science and engineering teams of today for the innovative processes, technologies, and capabilities it will need to be actualized. At its core, the LDRD Program is high risk, high reward. High

risk means that researchers who didn’t find the answer they were expecting still learned valuable insight that can guide upcoming discoveries. High reward indicates these experts found new ways to meet strategic priorities and help realize initiatives. LDRD is also strategic. Much of the research aligns with the high-level problems covered on the news every day. It combats climate change, creates new supercomputing systems, fuels bioscience research, protects the country from terrorism, and discovers more efficient energy sources. For decades, scientists have tried to make reliable, high-performing lithium-metal batteries. The Customized Lithium Batteries for Mission Applications Grand Challenge LDRD project has made remarkable strides toward this goal. They identified a system electrolyte that achieves high energy density, designed printable separators that enable much better performance, and used additive manufacturing to print electrodes on complex geometries. These achievements, which grew from smaller experiments and scientific inquiries, will one day contribute to the construction of custom-form batteries for mission applications.

Susan J. Seestrom, Ph. D. Associate Laboratories Director & Chief Research Officer Advanced Science and Technology