The cover, which highlights "Versatile Explosives," is a photograph of low-smoke fireworks, powered by a high-nitrogen energetic compound call DHT, bursting from an aluminum tube. This duplicates the behavior of a Roman candle. Small quantities of strontium salt produce the red color, and titanium powder yields the white sparks. The blue tinge to the outer titanium sparks is an artifact of the photographic process. Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have been focusing on this group of compounds – high-nitrogen energetic materials – and challenging the stereotypical notions of how explosives behave. Fireworks propelled by high-nitrogen energetic materials display vibrant colors and patterns in a virtually smoke-free environment. These vivid pyrotechnics eliminate sulfurous fumes and minimize the use of toxic colorants. As the article notes, high-nitrogen energetic compounds have applications in areas as diverse as naval gun propellants, fire suppressants, airbags and satellite microthrusters.
In an article of specific timeliness, "Defense Transformation" covers the changes constantly evolving from technical creativity that call for a transformed defense policy – one that keeps the United States' military forces ahead of the competition at every turn. This is a transformation from a world of mutually assured destruction with balanced tension – two deadlocked superpowers with comparable caches of like forces against like forces, mostly nuclear weapons – to one of asymmetry, of dissimilar forces exhibited by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. New dangers call for new thinking and a new, transformed defense posture. Los Alamos National Laboratory, as the country's premier nuclear weapons laboratory, has been a major force of technology for a defense posture centered on nuclear weapons, but it also is working in the realm of advanced research and development weaponry and biological threat detection devices. The article elaborates on this work.
Just as defense transformation requires new weaponry, it also requires innovative means to detect threats. Los Alamos scientists have developed a rugged, inexpensive neutron detector that could be mass-produced to provide more-widespread border screening for nuclear contraband. To discover more about the problem and details about the detector and the science involved in its creation, see the article, "A Modular Neutron Detector."
The regular segments, Dateline Los Alamos and Spotlight, Los Alamos in the News, feature brief articles on the production of a nuclear weapon pit, Qual-1, that meets specifications for use in the U.S. stockpile. This major milestone is the culmination of a six-year effort at the Lab's Plutonium Facility. New pits are needed to replace those removed from the stockpile during periodic destructive surveillance and as reserves should surveillance studies identify pit problems that affect weapon safety, reliability or performance. And the winners of the Los Alamos Technology Maturation awards, given for those innovations with strong commercial potential, are a prototype portable, real-time air-particulate monitor that can detect 16 hazardous elements and another prototype of coils of magnesium diborides superconducting wire that shows promise for reducing the size and cost of magnetic resonance imaging machines and power transformers.
Noted too is Laboratory physicist, Tom Bowles. He received the top scientific prize awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Nuclear Research, the M.A. Markov Prize for his work with the Soviet-American Gallium Experiment, which has been the only experiment to directly detect low-energy neutrinos from proton-proton fusion in the sun.
There also is a brief on Los Alamos geologist Giday WoldeGabriel, who was on an international team of scientists who discovered, in the Afar region of northeastern Ethiopia, a new subspecies of modern humans, Homo sapiens idaltu, named for the term meaning "elder" in the Afar languages.
The quarterly's production team is led by Scientific Editor James L. Smith of Los Alamos' Materials Technology Group, Executive Editor Judyth Prono and Art Director Chris Brigman, both of the Communication Arts and Services group.
Covering a full spectrum of the Laboratory's science and research, this quarterly, full-color publication aims to communicate Los Alamos' goals and achievements and how they benefit its Lab's neighbors, the nation and the world. This issue completes the first full-year cycle of the publication.
For more information about Research Quarterly, contact either Smith at 7-4476 or Prono at 5-8383 or both by e-mail at larq@lanl.gov.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and Washington Group International for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.