Inside the Ames Laboratory

Alex King - director of The Ames Laboratory - discusses the current state of the lab, its goals, and the importance of the research taking place here.

Transcript

00:00:09 the mission of the lab is unchanged we still create materials we inspire minds to solve problems and we address global challenges that's what the aims lab does we invent materials probably more than any other institution anywhere in the world if you have a cell phone you have Ames lab technology in your pocket the lead-free solder that holds all the pieces together was invented at ames lab

00:00:37 as you well know rare-earth research at Ames is actually really attracting a huge amount of interest right now we're working on both ends of the economic scale that is driving rare earth prices up so we're working on improving the supply of rare earths and we're working on reducing the demand for rare earths Ames lab researchers in 2010 published roughly four percent of all the papers

00:01:10 published by the National Labs in the broad areas of expertise that the lab claims despite having four percent we produce six of the top 100 most cited papers in 2010 what goes on here is not only a lot of science but it's a lot of very high quality science we've seen a huge increase also in the number of external connections we have people trying to get into ames lab to

00:01:42 collaborate with Ames lab researchers at a higher rate than ever before we are already recognized as being the nation's leader on one of the world's leaders in rare earth materials science and engineering and we're going to build upon that and boost its visibility even further with the goal of becoming the National Center for rare earth and energy related materials oh