Sandia Lab News

Five seconds at F/16, with a broken camera

In May 1998, Sandia photojournalist Randy Montoya captured a photo that has since become legend. The stunning image, nicknamed "Arcs and Sparks," captures the Z machine just as it fires — a mere 100 nanoseconds of roughly 200 trillion watts of x-ray energy, many times all the electrical power generated in the world at any given moment.

Working smart

Pioneering smart grid technology solves decades old problematic power grid phenomenon