Sandia Labs FY22 Laboratory Directed Research & Development Annual Report

FY22 ANNUAL REPORT

CONTENTS FROM THE CHIEF RESEARCH OFFICER................1 LDRD PROGRAM OVERVIEW.............................5 LDRD Program Objectives..............................................................5 Sandia’s LDRD Program Structure................................................5 LDRD Investment Area Roles ......................................................6 LDRD PROGRAM VALUE....................................7 Performance Indicators...................................................................7 Long-term Metrics............................................................................8 Short-term Metrics.........................................................................17 LDRD Impact Story: LDRD-developed critical system cybersecurity technologies help government agencies ensure they are better protected...........................................................18 LDRD Impact Story: LDRD-enabled quantum research pushing S&T frontiers, benefitting multiple missions. ........................20 PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS – MISSION AGILITY....22 Additive manufacturing of magnetically insulated transmission lines. .........................................................................23 pulsed power drivers. ...................................................................24 DOE simulators benefit from development of self-break, high-pressure air-insulated 3 MV switches. ............................24 Real-time evasive maneuvers in contested, uncertain environments. ..............................................................25 Hypersonic wind tunnel test bed for fault-tolerant and adaptive control..................................................................... 26 Physically rigorous reduced-order flow models of fractured subsurface environments without explosive computational cost. .......................................................................26 Predicting individual differences in cognition using advanced statistics. .......................................................................27 Reconfiguring the respiratory tract microbiome to prevent and treat infectious disease. ..................................28 Releasing, detecting, and modeling trace aerosols and gases in Earth’s stratosphere. ............................................29 Understanding molecular-scale effects on fracture can inform resource extraction and help maintain the nation’s infrastructure. ..........................................................30 Acoustic sensing on Arctic seafloor using repurposed telecommunications optical fiber. ..............................................31 Extraction and separation of rare-earth elements from domestic waste using citric acid. .....................................32 Development of novel liquid metal solution chemistry produces renewable hydrogen by water splitting..................33 Quantifying aerosol injection behavior from large-scale satellite imagery using statistical modeling and machine learning. ..........................................................................34 Self-assembled seashell-like coatings can act as large area robust debris shields for next generation

Overcoming wave energy converter grid integration challenges by providing a complete power forecast at electrical grid connections. .....................................................35 Designing compositionally complex oxide catalysts to convert greenhouse gases into valuable chemicals..........................................................................36 Detonation in multilayer explosives: Effects of the characteristic length scale of mixing. .................................36 Using machine learning to create rapid stronglink mechanisms CAD-to-simulation-ready models. .....................37 Enabling fully predictive simulations using disruptive computational mechanics and novel diagnostics for fluid-to-solid transitions. ..............................................................38 High-speed diagnostic and simulation capabilities for reacting hypersonic reentry flows. ......................................38 Developing large, high-uniformity focal plane arrays for remote sensing through low-dark-current extended-short-wave detectors. ................................................39 Investigation of microcalorimeter photon detector performance to enable nonproliferation application use. ..............................................................................40 Mobile jam-proof wireless technology allows for maintenance of line-of-sight network. ...............................40 Computational imaging for intelligence in highly scattering aerosols. .......................................................................41 Customized lithium batteries for mission applications. .......42 Stress intensity thresholds for development of reliable brittle materials. ..............................................................43 Smart Materials for Highly Complex Optical Tags with Environmental Response. ............................................................44 Fin ion tunable transistor for ultra-low power computing. ..........................................................................44 New technology for HI devices allows for underfilling of complex geometries using driven fluids. ..................................45 New 2.5D neuromorphic discovery platform will enable AI-enhanced co-design. ..................................................46 Twitcher: Motor dither correlation for the survival of global navigation satellite system spoofing attacks. ..........46 ADMMA project enables beam-agile RF sensing and promises unprecedented flexibility and performance. .........47 Enabling new mission space with miniature programmable delay element for electronic warfare applications. ...............48 Radiation-hard, high-voltage, chip-scale power converter delivers large benefits in a compact package. ........................49 Environmental learning methodologies for remote sensing power optimization. .......................................................49 Designing functionally graded metallic composites to enable interfacial properties tailored to mission-specific needs. . ...............................................................50 Cutting-edge methods and techniques allow accurate prediction of UHF wave propagation in mission applications. .....................................................................51

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