The United States Department of Energy National Laboratories and Technology Centers is a system of laboratories overseen by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) for scientific and technological research. The primary mission of the DOE national laboratories is to conduct research and development (R&D) addressing national priorities: energy and climate, the environment, national security, and health. [1] Sixteen of the seventeen DOE national laboratories are federally funded research and development centers administered, managed, operated and staffed by private-sector organizations under management and operating (M&O) contracts with the DOE. [2] The National Laboratory system was established in the wake of World War II, during which the United States had quickly set-up and pursued advanced scientific research in the sprawling Manhattan Project.
The DOE is the nation's largest sponsor of research in the physical sciences and engineering, and is second to the Department of Defense in supporting computer sciences and mathematics. [3] Most of that research is performed by the national laboratories. [4]
Although the national laboratories form an integrated system, each of them has its individual mission, capabilities, and structure.
The chart shows the nature of the research done at each laboratory.
All 17 of the laboratories are listed below, along with the location, establishment date, and the organization that currently operates each.
The DOE Office of Science operates an extensive network of 28 national scientific user facilities. [16] A total of over 30,000 scientific users from universities, national laboratories, and technology companies use these facilities to advance their research and development. The staff of experts at each facility who build and operate the associated instruments and work with visiting scientists to mount experiments with them. This access and support is provided without charge to qualified scientific groups, with priority based on recommendations by expert review panels. All six research offices support scientific user facilities at national laboratories.
Office of Science National Scientific User Facilities | |||
---|---|---|---|
Sponsoring program office | Type of facility | User facility name & laboratory | Number of staff (approx.)/ number of scientific users (2021) |
Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) [17] | High-performance computing (HPC) facilities | Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) @ ANL [19] | 170/1,168 |
National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) @ LBNL | 130/8,751 | ||
Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) @ ORNL | 180/1,696 | ||
High-performance research network | Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) @ LBNL [22] | 135/ | |
Biological and Environmental Research(BER) [23] | Facility for atmospheric observations | Atmospheric Radiation Measurement facility (ARM) @ PNNL (lead lab) [24] | 100/960 |
Facility for environmental molecular sciences | Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) @ PNNL [25] | 180/801 | |
Facility for integrative genomic science | The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) @ LBNL [26] | 250/2,180 | |
Basic Energy Sciences (BES) [27] | X-ray light source facilities [28] | The Advanced Light Source (ALS) @ LBNL [29] | 200/1,159 |
The Advanced Photon Source (APS) @ ANL [30] | 450/3,686 | ||
National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) @ BNL [31] | 375/1,022 | ||
The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) @ SLAC [32] | 326/720 | ||
The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) @ SLAC [33] | 150/1030 | ||
Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs) | The Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) @ BNL [35] | 65/571 | |
The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) @ LANL & SNL [36] | 100/721 | ||
The Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) @ ANL [37] | 54/702 | ||
The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) @ ORNL [38] | 108/656 | ||
The Molecular Foundry (TMF) @ LBNL [39] | 67/654 | ||
Neutron Scattering Facilities | The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) @ ORNL [41] | 100/202 | |
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) @ ORNL [42] | 450/483 | ||
Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) [43] | Fusion Facilities | The DIII-D (tokamak) National Fusion Facility @ General Atomics [44] | NA/429 |
National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) @ PPPL [45] | 300/358 | ||
High Energy Physics (HEP) [46] | Accelerator complex supporting physics experiments | The Fermilab Accelerator Complex @ FNAL [47] | 500/1,725 |
Accelerator test facilities | The Accelerator Test Facility @ BNL [48] | 16/80 | |
The Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests (FACET) @ SLAC [49] | 25/111 | ||
The system of national laboratories started with the massive scientific endeavors of World War II, in which several new technologies, especially the atomic bomb, proved decisive for the Allied victory. Though the United States government had begun seriously investing in scientific research for national security in World War I, it was only in this wartime period that significant resources were committed to scientific problems, under the auspices first of the National Defense Research Committee, and later the Office of Scientific Research and Development, organized and administered by Vannevar Bush.
During the Second World War, centralized sites such as the Radiation Laboratory at MIT and Ernest O. Lawrence's laboratory at Berkeley and the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago allowed for a large number of expert scientists to collaborate towards defined goals as never before, and with government resources of unprecedented scale at their disposal.
In the course of the war, the Allied nuclear effort, the Manhattan Project, created several secret sites for the purpose of bomb research and material development, including a laboratory in the mountains of New Mexico directed by Robert Oppenheimer (Los Alamos), and sites at Hanford, Washington and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Hanford and Oak Ridge were administered by private companies, and Los Alamos was administered by a public university (the University of California). Additional success was had at the University of Chicago in reactor research, leading to the creation of Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago, and at other academic institutions spread across the country.
After the war and its scientific successes, the newly created Atomic Energy Commission took over the future of the wartime laboratories, extending their lives indefinitely (they were originally thought of as temporary creations). Funding and infrastructure were secured to sponsor other "national laboratories" for both classified and basic research, especially in physics, with each national laboratory centered around one or many expensive machines (such as particle accelerators or nuclear reactors).
Most national laboratories maintained staffs of local researchers as well as allowing for visiting researchers to use their equipment, though priority to local or visiting researchers often varied from lab to lab. With their centralization of resources (both monetary and intellectual), the national labs serve as an exemplar for Big Science.
The national laboratory system, administered first by the Atomic Energy Commission, then the Energy Research and Development Administration, and currently the Department of Energy, is one of the largest (if not the largest) scientific research systems in the world. The DOE provides about a third of the total national funding for physics, chemistry, materials science, and other areas of the physical sciences. [50]
Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the American southwest. Best known for its central role in helping develop the first atomic bomb, LANL is one of the world's largest and most advanced scientific institutions.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is now sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UT–Battelle, LLC.
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, a hamlet of the Town of Brookhaven. It was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base on Long Island. Located approximately 60 miles east of New York City, it is managed by Stony Brook University and Battelle Memorial Institute.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center in the hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established in 1931 by the University of California (UC), the laboratory is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by the UC system. Ernest Lawrence, who won the Nobel prize for inventing the cyclotron, founded the lab and served as its director until his death in 1958. Located in the Berkeley Hills, the lab overlooks the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy-related research, and energy conservation.
Argonne National Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UChicago Argonne LLC of the University of Chicago. The facility is the largest national laboratory in the Midwest.
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is an accelerator-based neutron source facility in the U.S. that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development. Each year, the facility hosts hundreds of researchers from universities, national laboratories, and industry, who conduct basic and applied research and technology development using neutrons. SNS is part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is managed by UT-Battelle for the United States Department of Energy (DOE). SNS is a DOE Office of Science user facility, and it is open to scientists and researchers from all over the world.
The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is a scientific user facility for integrative genomic science at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The mission of the JGI is to advance genomics research in support of the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) missions of energy and the environment. It is one of three national scientific user facilities supported by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) within the Department of Energy's Office of Research. These BER facilities are part of a more extensive network of 28 national scientific user facilities that operate at the DOE national laboratories.
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is an office within the United States Department of Energy. Formed from other energy agencies after the 1973 energy crisis, EERE is led by the Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, who is appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Alejandro Moreno currently leads the office as the Acting Assistant Secretary.
High Performance Storage System (HPSS) is a flexible, scalable, policy-based, software-defined hierarchical storage management (HSM) product developed by the HPSS Collaboration. It provides scalable HSM, archive, and file system services using cluster, LAN and storage area network (SAN) technologies to aggregate the capacity and performance of many computers, disks, disk systems, tape drives, and tape libraries.
The Office of Science is a component of the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The Office of Science is the lead federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for energy and the Nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. The Office of Science portfolio has two principal thrusts: direct support of scientific research and direct support of the development, construction, and operation of unique, open-access scientific user facilities that are made available for use by external researchers.
A neutron research facility is most commonly a big laboratory operating a large-scale neutron source that provides thermal neutrons to a suite of research instruments. The neutron source usually is a research reactor or a spallation source. In some cases, a smaller facility will provide high energy neutrons using existing neutron generator technologies.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is a United States federal agency responsible for safeguarding national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile; works to reduce the global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the United States Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the United States and abroad.
The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is a scientific user facility for nuclear science, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), Michigan State University (MSU), and the State of Michigan. Michigan State University contributed an additional $212 million in various ways, including the land. MSU established and operates FRIB as a user facility for the Office of Nuclear Physics in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. At FRIB, scientists research the properties of rare isotopes to advance knowledge in the areas of nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions of nuclei, and real-world applications of rare isotopes. Construction of the FRIB conventional facilities began in spring 2014 and was completed in 2017. Technical construction started in the fall of 2014 and was completed in January 2022. The total project cost was $730M with project completion in June 2022.
The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), formerly known as the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF), is one of the world's most powerful linear accelerators. It is located in Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in Technical Area 53. It was the most powerful linear accelerator in the world when it was opened in June 1972. The technology used in the accelerator was developed under the direction of nuclear physicist Louis Rosen. The facility is capable of accelerating protons up to 800 MeV. Multiple beamlines allow for a variety of experiments to be run at once, and the facility is used for many types of research in materials testing and neutron science. It is also used for medical radioisotope production.
Alvin William Trivelpiece was an American physicist whose varied career included positions as director of the Office of Energy Research of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He was also a professor of physics and a corporate executive. Trivelpiece's research focused on plasma physics, controlled thermonuclear research, and particle accelerators. He received several patents for accelerators and microwave devices. He died in Rancho Santa Margarita, California in August 2022 at the age of 91.
John M. "Jack" Carpenter was an American nuclear engineer known as the originator of the technique for utilizing accelerator-induced intense pulses of neutrons for research and developing the first spallation slow neutron source based on a proton synchrotron, the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS). He died on 10 March 2020.
Stephen K. Streiffer is an American materials scientist who began serving as the director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2023. Prior to this position, he served as interim director at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Streiffer joined Stanford University in 2022 as vice present for SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory after 24 years at Argonne National Laboratory.
Science tourism is a travel topic grouping scientific attractions. It covers interests in visiting and exploring scientific landmarks, including museums, laboratories, observatories and universities. It also includes visits to see events of scientific interest, such as solar eclipses.
The National User Facilities are a set of large-scale scientific facilities maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, whose roles are to provide the scientific community with world-leading scientific instruments to enable research. These facilities are generally free to use, and are open to scientists from all over the world, usually through the submission and evaluation of research proposals.