Ground was broken on 19 August in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the biggest project ever undertaken at Sandia National Laboratories, a US Department of Energy defense lab. Research at the $462.5 million Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications (MESA) facility will be driven by weapons and other security applications (see Physics Today, October 1999, page 65).
The initial research thrust, says MESA Director Don Cook, will be on radiation-hardened microelectronics. Other goals include developing poly-silicon actuators for nonvolatile computer memories, environmental sensors, microswitches, radio-frequency microelectromechanical systems, and safety devices for conventional weapons.
MESA is scheduled to be completed in 2008.
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