R&D 100 nominees: front row, Silvia Crivelli, Julie Seeley, Songi Han, Jonathan Slack, Tom Richardson; back row, Alex Zettl, Deputy Director Pier Oddone, Alex Pines

Berkeley Lab’s Technology Transfer Department has announced that four research projects have been submitted for consideration in the 2004 competition for R&D 100 Awards. Sponsored by R&D magazine, the contest honors organizations and individuals for the most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace.

A recent Lab reception honored the applicants and the proposal preparation teams for their efforts. They included:

• Tom Richardson and Jonathan Slack, Environmental Energy Technologies Division, “Transition Metal Switchable Mirrors.” This project features thin-film coating on glass that can be reversibly converted to reflecting or transparent mode through electrical charge or exposure to dilute-hydrogen gas. They can be programmed to respond to the amount of sunlight present. Chief writer for the proposal was EETD’s Allan Chen.
• Silvia Crivelli and Wes Bethel of the Computing Science Division, for “Protein Shop”. This software tool generates initial configurations for protein structures in hours, enables the user to interact with the program, and accelerates the construction of 3D candidates for inclusion in the Global Optimization Program.
• Alex Pines, post-doc Song-I Han and doctoral candidate Juliette A. Seeley, Materials Sciences Division, for “Remote NMR/MRI Detection of Laser-Polarized Gases.” This process extends the capabilities of magnetic resonance imaging by allowing the encoding and decoding of the image signal to occur in two places, with instruments optimized for each part. Laser-polarized Xenon gas is used to carry and “remember” the coding. Jim Miller was chief writer on the proposal.
• Alex Zettl, of Materials Sciences, for “Synthetic Rotational Nanomotor.” This nanomotor is the smallest yet developed by three orders of magnitude and is based on carbon sheets rolled into tubes, plus gold rotor blades. The application could include a range of biosensors, cell phones and other electronic equipment, and biomonitors. Chief writer for the proposal was Julie McCullough.

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