Overview

The Micro and Nano Technologies Laboratories (MANTL) comprises four buildings with office and lab space, and Sandia’s Plating Research Laboratory. Built in the 1990s, the buildings originally intended to support the Strategic Defense Initiative (nicknamed Star Wars). When that program was cancelled, the area was dedicated as a manufacturing lab until 2002 when micro and nano research took priority.
Sandia scientists have reached historic milestones within MANTL and continue to research new technologies and capabilities. In the early 2000s, MANTL housed research and development of the smallest, fastest microchips known at the time.
MANTL engineers and scientists also created the Explosive Destruction System which destroys old chemical munitions in a safe, environmentally sound way.
Science research within MANTL is broad, with labs focused on mechanical and electrical engineering, chemistry, radiography, plating, and more.