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.

Sandia’s robotic work cell conducts high-throughput testing ‘in an instant’

With 3D printing, you can make almost anything in a matter of hours. However, making sure 3D-printed parts work reliably takes weeks or even months. To speed up the process, Sandia scientists have designed and built a six-sided work cell around a commercial robot that conducts high-throughput testing to quickly determine how well those parts perform.