N M Tech Research Division Hosts "Energetic" Conference

by George Zamora

SOCORRO, N.M., March 1, 2007 – New Mexico Tech’s Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC) recently hosted the Second Annual Center for Energetic Materials and Energetic Devices (CEMED) Conference, a daylong event held this past Tuesday that focused on “Femtosecond Lasers, Energetic Materials, and Energetic Devices.”

The conference program included several technical talks given throughout the day, as well as an afternoon tour of EMRTC’s Femtosecond Laser Cutting Work Station, a specialized laser unit that allows the research division to cut and form energetic and non-energetic materials with powerful, ultra-short pulses of energy that last only a few hundred femtoseconds. A femtosecond is one-quadrillionth of a second, or one-millionth of one-billionth of a second.

Featured speaker for the CEMED Conference was New Mexico Tech mechanical engineering professor Sayavur Bakhtiyarov, who spoke on “The Explosive Engineering Program at New Mexico Tech: Past, Present, and Future.”

CEMED is an umbrella organization comprised of New Mexico Tech, Sandia National Laboratories, and Los Alamos National Laboratories, whose primary focus is on understanding and studying the properties of energetic materials and devices, such as industrial explosives and military munitions.

-NMT-