DOE Information Exchanges Held in New Mexico

Extract

Two recent DOE information exchanges exemplifying the breadth and depth of materials research supported through BES/DMS were held at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, on June 15-16 and at Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, New Mexico on June 17-18, 1987. The Division of Materials Sciences (DMS), Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), U.S. Department of Energy, holds annual information exchanges at each of the national laboratories. Representatives of all DOE national laboratories as well as representatives of other government, academic, and industrial laboratories are invited to attend the information exchanges.

The LANL meeting was opened by laboratory director Sig Hecker, who set the stage for a day and a half of technical presentations concerning BES-supported research at Los Alamos. Organizing the meeting and chairing the first day's session was James L. Smith, chairman of LANL's Center for Materials Science. A wide variety of topics were covered. Leading off was Zachary Fisk, who discussed correlated electrons and high T_c superconductivity. He described work on both heavy fermion systems and the new ceramic oxide superconductors.

Subsequent presentations dealt with localized vibrational modes (soliton-like) which can be sustained in solids showing both dispersion and nonlinear effects. Thermal physics and quantum fluids were described and a novel acoustic dilution refrigerator concept was demonstrated. Studies designed to elucidate the structure of molecular solids were also discussed.