Three technologies from the US Department of Energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) won the 2021 R&D 100 Award, representing innovations in memory and logic chips, next-generation batteries, and radiation detection and mapping.
The R&D 100 Awards issued by R&D Magazine are selected by an independent jury to recognize the 100 most innovative and disruptive technological products of the year from industry, academia, and government-funded research. Established in 1963, the R&D 100 Awards is the only science and technology awards competition to recognize new commercial products, technologies and materials of technical significance that can be sold or licensed.
Go here to see all the winners. This year's three awards bring the total number of Berkeley Labs R&D 100 to 108, including two Editor's Choice awards. The winners will be commended at the virtual awards ceremony on October 19-21, 2021.
The components on the chip are getting smaller and smaller, but the current methods of copying patterns onto the wafer have limited accuracy. (Image source: Pixabay/Michael Schwarzenberger)
Manufacturers of devices such as smartphones or computers are constantly trying to shrink the components on each system-on-chip (SOC) in order to increase performance and power without significantly increasing costs. This reduction is achieved by using photolithography technology, which can achieve mass manufacturing by quickly copying the pattern layout of the photomask onto the target wafer. This technology is limited by the size of the wavelength, so shrinking the scale requires shorter and shorter wavelengths.
A new lithography technology called extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) has recently been deployed in the largest chip manufacturers. This technology uses very small wavelengths of light and can pattern very small features, but a challenge for the new technology It is the thickness of the mask pattern required to ensure that typical absorbing materials are dark enough to adequately block light. Scientists at Berkeley Lab have created a new, darker absorbing material, chromium-antimony, which can produce high-quality nano-films and can be patterned with a high degree of control and resolution, down to 5 nanometers. The present invention is expected to provide high resolution, single exposure and cost-effective patterning for the manufacture of logic and memory chips.
Investigators: Daniel Staaks (PI), Stefano Cabrini (Molecular Foundry), Patrick Naulleau, Farhad Salmassi, Eric Gullikson (X-ray Optics Center, Materials Science Department)
The cathode invented by Berkeley Lab uses a new layered rock salt symbiotic oxide material. (Source: Berkeley Lab/Wei Tong)
The global lithium-ion battery market of more than 30 billion U.S. dollars is expected to double in the next five years. High-performance and safe batteries are critical to many industries. However, under high voltage, current cathode materials used in lithium-ion batteries degrade over time and exhibit significant performance degradation, which limits their usefulness in many critical applications.
Improved cathode materials can help batteries operate reliably with high capacity and high voltage in repeated cycles without sacrificing performance, safety or cost. Scientists at Berkeley Lab have developed a unique cathode material that uses a layered rock salt symbiotic structure that combines the high capacity of lithium-rich metal oxides, the fast kinetics of the cation ordered layered structure, and the cation disordered rock salt structure The structural stability. This material has been proven to have high capacity, fast charging time and energy transfer, as well as excellent cycle and thermal stability. In addition, when expensive cobalt is completely replaced by cost-effective iron, the raw material cost for producing layered rock salt symbiotic electrodes is estimated to be much lower than the cost of lithium-rich layered oxides. This innovation embodies a new battery electrode design concept and opens up a new class of high-performance symbiotic cathode materials.
Investigators: Wei Tong (PI), Ning Li, Meiling Sun, Jing Xu (energy technology field) and Wanli Yang (energy science field)
Lightweight NG-LAMP equipment includes LiDAR and vision sensors, radiation sensors and computing components. (Source: Berkeley Lab/Josh Kates)
The detection and mapping of radiation sources are critical to international safety, nuclear reactor safety and decontamination. Scientists at Berkeley Lab developed the Neutron and Gamma-ray Source Location and Mapping Platform (NG-LAMP), which is the first real-time platform for mapping gamma-ray and neutron sources in three-dimensional space. 3D maps can better determine the pollution or hot spots of specific areas or objects than the 2D methods used by portable radiation imaging systems currently on the market, so as to achieve more effective planning and response.
The NG-LAMP platform uses the scene data fusion developed by Berkeley Labs to provide a 3D high-resolution nuclear radiation map, which contains data and radiation data from the sensors on the device (including LiDAR and vision sensors). The software suite developed by Berkeley Lab, called the positioning and mapping platform, combines the data collected by the device, and the airborne computing unit uses this data in real time to generate radioactive 3D reconstructions (no need to transmit sensor data and perform calculations on an external platform ). Then transmit the 3D map to the user via WiFi.
This lightweight device is suitable for portable operations and operations on drones and ground vehicles. This capability can support the US military, international inspectors, and law enforcement agencies in locating radiation sources, as well as supporting nuclear reactor emergency response and decontamination efforts.
Investigators: Joshua Cates (PI), Ryan Pavlovsky, Victor Negut, Brian Goter, Tenzing Joshi, Alex Moran (in the field of physical sciences)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was established in 1931. It firmly believes that the biggest scientific challenge is best solved by the team. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its scientists have won 14 Nobel Prizes. Today, Berkeley Lab researchers develop sustainable energy and environmental solutions, create useful new materials, advance the frontiers of computing, and explore the mysteries of life, matter, and the universe. Scientists from all over the world rely on laboratory facilities to carry out their own discovery science. The Berkeley Laboratory is a multi-project national laboratory managed by the University of California for the Office of Science of the Department of Energy.
The Office of Science of the US Department of Energy is the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences of the United States, dedicated to solving some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
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