Sandia National Laboratories has earned eight honours at the 2025 R&D 100 Awards, including seven technology awards and the prestigious Researcher of the Year professional award. Hosted by R&D World, the R&D 100 Awards recognise 100 of the world’s most significant technological advancements each year.
“This is a big year for Sandia,” said Doug Kothe, associate laboratories director and Sandia’s chief research officer. “The R&D 100 Awards are sometimes called the ‘Oscars of invention’ because they are so competitive. Winning eight in one year is incredible. It’s a new record for the Labs.”
The 2025 awards highlight Sandia’s research focus on technologies designed for extreme conditions and high-consequence environments. Several winning projects address sensing, measurement and detection challenges where safety, speed and reliability are critical, while others advance materials science and diagnostics to better understand system behaviour under intense heat, pressure and electrical stress.
Researcher of the Year
Sandia materials scientist Hongyou Fan was named 2025 R&D 100 Researcher of the Year for his contributions to chemical science, nanoscience and materials science. His work has advanced nanoelectronics, energy systems and materials separation technologies. Fan holds 24 patents, has previously received six R&D 100 awards and has been recognised by multiple professional societies.
Award-Winning Technologies
Among Sandia’s 2025 R&D 100 technology award recipients are:
- Electro-optical sensor for high-energy environments, capable of measuring voltages up to 20 million volts without physical contact, improving safety and reliability in applications such as lightning research, high-energy physics and electrical utility monitoring.
- Colorized Hyperspectral X-Ray Imaging with Multi-Metal Targets (CHXI-MMT), which combines nanopatterned metal X-ray sources with advanced detection methods to deliver high-resolution imaging and precise material characterisation, with applications in biomedical imaging, transportation security, nondestructive testing and advanced manufacturing.
- Fentanyl Analog Independent Detector (FAID), a portable device that identifies fentanyl and its analogs without relying on extensive reference libraries, offering potential benefits for military personnel, emergency responders and law enforcement.
- Low coefficient of thermal expansion molecules for polymers, designed to reduce thermal expansion mismatch in harsh environments, improving durability and performance in aerospace, automotive, electronics and industrial applications.
- Hafnia gate dielectrics for energy conversion, which improve energy efficiency in power semiconductors and support growing demands from AI, data centres, transportation and smart grids.
- Bleeding materials and enclosures, tamper-indicating materials that irreversibly change colour if compromised, enhancing security for applications ranging from medication packaging to national security containers.
- Time-resolved diffraction sensors for the National Ignition Facility, enabling precise measurements of materials under extreme pressures and temperatures to support fusion research and Earth core studies.
LDRD Program Fuels Innovation
Many of the award-winning technologies were supported by Sandia’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) programme, which provides seed funding for early-stage, high-impact research. Six of Sandia’s seven technology awards in 2025 were rooted in LDRD-supported projects.
“Creativity and innovation are really the lifeblood of research and development,” said Dan Sinars, director of the Chief Research Office, which manages the LDRD programme. “We support over 500 LDRD projects each year, spanning every mission area of Sandia, and our impact assessments reveal that exploratory LDRD ideas from over a decade ago have matured into amazing technologies and capabilities today. This year’s R&D 100 awards are a great exemplar of that.”
Since 1965, Sandia has earned 169 R&D 100 Awards, including the 2025 honours.
“When Sandia began, scientists and engineers were charged with transforming visionary concepts into meaningful outcomes and that work is still very much alive at the Labs today,” Kothe said. “In a rapidly evolving world, our spirit of resourcefulness remains critical to the mission and to society as a whole. I’m so proud that our teams continue to push the forefront of research and technology.”
Reference: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1117276
