Chief Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory - Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies | National Nuclear Security Administration

Six Los Alamos scientists have been designated 2009 Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows in recognition of sustained, outstanding scientific contributions and exceptional promise for continued professional achievement. The title of Fellow is bestowed on only about 2 percent of the Laboratory's current technical staff. The new Fellows come from myriad scientific disciplines and have sustained high-level achievement important to the Laboratory, become recognized authorities in their fields, and made important discoveries used or cited by peers inside and outside the Laboratory.

Samuel "Tom" Picraux is chief scientist of the Laboratory's Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies. Picraux is known internationally for use of energetic ion beams for the characterization of materials, as well as for his advances in surface processing and epitaxy. Using his quantitative ion beam analysis developments, Picraux and his group pioneered the use of surface probes of the plasma edge to diagnose conditions in the U.S. and European tokamak experiments in fusion energy. Picraux and his colleagues pioneered the field of ion implantation metallurgy, creating a standard process for fabrication in the semiconductor industry. A 1990 E.O. Lawrence Award recipient for his developments in ion-challenging and related ion-beam techniques for materials characterization, Picraux has more than 250 publications (6,500 citations). He coauthored one book and edited six others. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and the Materials Research Society.