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98-631: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) is a federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California , United States . Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered privately by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response to

196-595: A Shyh Wang Hall , a facility designed to host the NERSC supercomputers and staff, the ESnet staff, and the research divisions in the Computing Sciences area. The building was designed with a novel seismic floor for the 20,000 square foot machine room in addition to features that take advantage of the coastal climate to provide energy-efficient air conditioning for the computing systems. In 2015 Paul Alivisatos announced that he

294-537: A National Historical Chemical Landmark at the Lab to memorialize this accomplishment. Glenn Seaborg was personally involved in discovering nine of these new elements, and he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1951 with McMillan. Founding Laboratory Director Lawrence died in 1958 at the age of 57. McMillan became the second Director, serving in that role until 1972. The University of California appointed Andrew Sessler as

392-467: A broad range of scientific and technical disciplines, applying current capabilities to existing programs and developing new science and technologies to meet future national needs. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has worked out several energy technologies in the field of coal gasification , shale oil extraction , geothermal energy , advanced battery research , solar energy , and fusion energy . Main oil shale processing technologies worked out by

490-483: A contractual obligation to terminate the employees only for "reasonable cause." The five plaintiffs also have pending age discrimination claims against LLNS, which will be heard by a different jury in a separate trial. There are 125 co-plaintiffs awaiting trial on similar claims against LLNS. The May 2008 layoff was the first layoff at the laboratory in nearly 40 years. On March 14, 2011, the City of Livermore officially expanded

588-422: A few minutes instead of the days to weeks previously required for DNA analysis. Today, Livermore researchers address a spectrum of threats – radiological/nuclear, chemical, biological, explosives, and cyber. They combine physical and life sciences, engineering, computations, and analysis to develop technologies that solve real-world problems. Activities are grouped into five programs: LLNL supports capabilities in

686-595: A laboratory dedicated only to unclassified scientific research. Much of the Laboratory's scientific leadership during this period were also faculty members in the Physics and Chemistry Departments at the University of California, Berkeley . The scientists and engineers at Berkeley Lab continued to build ambitious large projects to accelerate the advance of science. Lawrence's original cyclotron design did not work for particles near

784-575: A long history of developing high performance computing software and systems, focusing on creating highly complex physics models, visualization codes, and other unique applications tailored to specific research requirements. LLNL-developed software projects optimize the operation and management of the computer systems, including operating systems such as NLTSS or TOSS (Tri-Laboratory Operating System Stack), software build and installation tools such as Spack , and resource management packages such as Flux and SLURM . LLNL also initiated and continues leading

882-631: A major upgrade added "superbends" to produce harder x-rays for beamlines devoted to protein crystallography. In 1996, both the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) were moved from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to their new home at Berkeley Lab. To reestablish NERSC at Berkeley required moving a Cray C90 , a first-generation vector processor supercomputer of 1991 vintage, and installing

980-516: A new Cray T3E , the second-generation (1995) model. The NERSC computing capacity was 350 GFlop/s, representing 1/200,000 of the Perlmutter's speed in 2022. Horst Simon was brought to Berkeley as the first Director of NERSC, and he soon became one of the co-editors who managed the Top500 list of supercomputers, a position he has held ever since. The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) was created in 1997 to unite

1078-448: A new storage ring and an accumulator ring. The horizontal size of the electron beam in ALS will shrink from 100 micrometers to a few micrometers, which will improve the ability to image novel materials needed for next-generation batteries and electronics. With a total project cost of $ 590 million, this is the largest construction project at the Lab since the ALS was built in 1993. Shortly after

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1176-404: A number of California State agencies, and private industry. For Fiscal Year 2009 LLNL spent $ 1.497 billion on research and laboratory operations activities: Research/Science Budget: Site Management/Operations Budget: The LLNL director is appointed by the board of governors of Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS) and reports to the board. The laboratory director also serves as

1274-442: A position he held for 15 years. During his tenure, four of the five national scientific user facilities started operations at Berkeley, and the fifth started construction. On October 5, 1993, the new Advanced Light Source produced its first beams of x-ray light. David Shirley had proposed in the early 1990s building this new synchrotron source specializing in imaging materials using extreme ultraviolet to soft x-rays. In fall 2001,

1372-642: A result, its first three nuclear tests were unsuccessful. The lab persevered and its subsequent designs proved increasingly successful. In 1957, the Livermore Lab was selected to develop the warhead for the Navy's Polaris missile . This warhead required numerous innovations to fit a nuclear warhead into the relatively small confines of the missile nosecone. During the Cold War , many Livermore-designed warheads entered service. These were used in missiles ranging in size from

1470-434: A sample at any given time. Experiments are being conducted at LLNL and elsewhere to measure the structural, electrical and chemical properties of plutonium and its alloys and to determine how these materials change over time. Such measurements will enable scientists to better model and predict plutonium's long-term behavior in the aging stockpile. The Lab's plutonium research is conducted in a specially designed facility called

1568-448: A science magnet in high-energy-density (i.e., laser) physics . In addition, most of its special nuclear material would be removed and consolidated at a more central, yet-to-be-named site. On September 30, 2009, the NNSA announced that about two thirds of the special nuclear material (e.g., plutonium) at LLNL requiring the highest level of security protection had been removed from LLNL. The move

1666-448: A set of informal working papers of the large group of physicists, engineers, computer programmers, and technicians led by Luis W. Alvarez from the early 1950s until his death in 1988. Over 1700 memos are available on-line, hosted by the Laboratory. Berkeley Lab is credited with the discovery of 16 elements on the periodic table, more than any other institution, over the period 1940 to 1974. The American Chemical Society has established

1764-448: A seventh governor who is appointed by Battelle; they are non-voting and advisory to the executive committee. The remaining board positions are known as independent governors (also referred to as outside governors), and are selected from among individuals, preferably of national stature, and can not be employees or officers of the partner companies. The University of California-appointed chair has tie-breaking authority over most decisions of

1862-404: A startup curriculum, and access to the expertise and facilities of Berkeley Lab. Since members of the first cohort completed their fellowships in 2017, the 84 start-up companies founded by Cyclotron Road Fellows have raised over $ 2.5 billion in follow-on funding. Fifteen Berkeley Lab scientists have received the Nobel Prize in physics or chemistry. Fifteen Berkeley Lab scientists have received

1960-506: Is Jay Keasling , who was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for developing synthetic biology tools needed to engineer the antimalarial drug artemisinin. The DOE Office of Science named Keasling a Distinguished Scientist Fellow in 2021 for advancing the DOE's strategy in renewable energy. On December 15, 2008, newly elected President Barack Obama nominated Steven Chu to be

2058-532: Is a major partner on a second Energy Innovation Hub, the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) which was started in 2013, with Argonne National Laboratory as the lead institution. The Lab built a new facility, the General Purpose Laboratory, to house energy storage laboratories and associated research space, which Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz inaugurated in 2014. The mission of JCESR

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2156-650: Is a research and development institution for science and technology applied to national security. Its principal responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons through the application of advanced science, engineering, and technology. The laboratory also applies its special expertise and multidisciplinary capabilities towards preventing the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction , bolstering homeland security, and solving other nationally important problems, including energy and environmental needs, scientific research and outreach, and economic competitiveness. The laboratory

2254-499: Is best done through teams of individuals with different fields of expertise, working together, and his laboratory still considers that a guiding principle today. Berkeley Lab scientists have won fifteen Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry, and each one has a street named after them on the Lab campus. 23 Berkeley Lab employees were contributors to reports by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared

2352-521: Is built on the capabilities of its unique research facilities. The laboratory manages five national scientific user facilities, which are part of the network of 28 such facilities operated by the DOE Office of Science. These facilities and the expertise of the scientists and engineers who operate them are made available to 14,000 researchers from universities, industry, and government laboratories. Berkeley Lab operates five major National User Facilities for

2450-753: Is concern that it will become increasingly difficult to maintain high confidence in the current warheads for the long term, the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration initiated the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program. RRW designs could reduce uncertainties, ease maintenance demands, and enhance safety and security. In March 2007, the LLNL design was chosen for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. Since that time, Congress has not allocated funding for any further development of

2548-459: Is located on a 1 square mile (2.6 km) site at the eastern edge of Livermore . It also operates a 7,000 acres (28 km) remote experimental test site known as Site 300, situated about 15 miles (24 km) southeast of the main lab site. LLNL has an annual budget of about $ 2.7 billion and a staff of nearly 9,000 employees. LLNL was established in 1952, as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch , an offshoot of

2646-537: Is organized into these functional areas/offices: The laboratory is organized into four principal directorates, each headed by a principal associate director: Three other directorates are each headed by a principal associate director who reports to the LLNL director: The LLNL director reports to the Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS) board of governors, a group of key scientific, academic, national security and business leaders from

2744-428: Is to deliver transformational new concepts and materials that will enable a diversity of high performance next-generation batteries for transportation and the grid. On November 12, 2015, Laboratory Director Paul Alivisatos and Deputy Director Horst Simon were joined by University of California President Janet Napolitano , UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks , and the head of DOE's ASCR program Barb Helland to dedicate

2842-793: The Lance surface-to-surface tactical missile to the megaton-class Spartan antiballistic missile . Over the years, LLNL designed the following warheads: W27 (Regulus cruise missile; 1955; joint with Los Alamos), W38 (Atlas/Titan ICBM; 1959), B41 (B52 bomb; 1957), W45 (Little John/Terrier missiles; 1956), W47 (Polaris SLBM; 1957), W48 (155-mm howitzer; 1957), W55 (submarine rocket; 1959), W56 (Minuteman ICBM; 1960), W58 (Polaris SLBM; 1960), W62 (Minuteman ICBM; 1964), W68 (Poseidon SLBM; 1966), W70 (Lance missile; 1969), W71 (Spartan missile; 1968), W79 (8-in. artillery gun; 1975), W82 (155-mm howitzer; 1978), B83 (modern strategic bomb; 1979), and W87 (LGM-118 Peacekeeper/MX ICBM; 1982). The W87 and

2940-655: The National Medal of Science and two have been awarded the [National Medal of Technology and Innovation]]. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation was awarded to Arthur Rosenfeld in 2011 and to Ashok Gadgil in 2023. The laboratory was founded on August 26, 1931, by Ernest Lawrence , as the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley , associated with the Physics Department. It centered physics research around his new instrument,

3038-462: The Nobel Peace Prize . Fifteen Lab scientists have also won the National Medal of Science , and two have won the National Medal of Technology and Innovation . 82 Berkeley Lab researchers have been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences or the National Academy of Engineering . Berkeley Lab has the greatest research publication impact of any single government laboratory in

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3136-474: The University of California , Bechtel , BWX Technologies , Amentum (company) , and Battelle Memorial Institute in affiliation with the Texas A&;M University System ). In 2012, the synthetic chemical element livermorium (element 116) was named after the laboratory. The Livermore facility was co-founded by Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence , then director of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley. LLNL

3234-469: The cyclotron , a type of particle accelerator for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939. Throughout the 1930s, Lawrence pushed to create larger and larger machines for physics research, courting private philanthropists for funding. He was the first to develop a large team to build big projects to make discoveries in basic research. Eventually these machines grew too large to be held on

3332-549: 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 ,

3430-610: The Advanced Light Source to build it into a world-class scientific user facility. In 2001, Chemla proposed the establishment of the Molecular Foundry , to make cutting-edge instruments and expertise for nanotechnology accessible to a broad research community. Paul Alivisatos as founding director, and the founding directors of the facilities were Carolyn Bertozzi , Jean Frechet , Steven Gwon Sheng Louie , Jeffrey Bokor , and Miquel Salmeron. The Molecular Foundry building

3528-633: The B83 are the only LLNL designs still in the U.S. nuclear stockpile. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War , the United States began a moratorium on nuclear testing and development of new nuclear weapon designs. To sustain existing warheads for the indefinite future, a science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) was defined that emphasized the development and application of greatly improved technical capabilities to assess

3626-473: The Berkeley lab until 1971. To this day, in official planning documents and records, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is designated as Site 100, Lawrence Livermore National Lab as Site 200, and LLNL's remote test location as Site 300. The laboratory was renamed Lawrence Livermore Laboratory ( LLL ) in 1971. On October 1, 2007 Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS) assumed management of LLNL from

3724-551: The Center for Naval Analyses. The first FFRDCs served the Department of Defense . Since then, other government organizations have sponsored FFRDCs to meet their specific needs. In 1969, the number of FFRDCs peaked at 74. The following list includes all current FFRDCs: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ( LBNL , Berkeley Lab ) is a federally funded research and development center in

3822-511: The DOE Office of Science: Much of the research at Berkeley Lab is done by researchers from several disciplines and multiple institutions working together as a large team focused on shared scientific goals. Berkeley is either the lead partner or one of the leads in several research institutes and hubs, including the following: Cyclotron Road is a fellowship program for technology innovators, supporting entrepreneurial scientists as they advance their own technology projects. The core support for

3920-568: The DOE/NNSA Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, as well as the Department of Homeland Security . LLNL also receives funding from DOE's Office of Science , Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, and Office of Nuclear Energy . In addition, LLNL conducts work-for-others research and development for various Defense Department sponsors, other federal agencies, including NASA , Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), National Institutes of Health , and Environmental Protection Agency ,

4018-462: The JGI established itself as a national user facility managed by Berkeley Lab, focusing on the broad genomic needs of biology and biotechnology, especially those related to the environment and carbon management. Laboratory Director Shank brought Daniel Chemla from Bell Labs to Berkeley Lab in 1991 to lead the newly formed Division of Materials Science and Engineering. In 1998 Chemla was appointed director of

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4116-475: The LLNS partner companies that jointly own and control LLNS. The LLNS board of governors has a total of 16 positions, with six of these governors constituting an executive committee. All decisions of the board are made by the governors on the executive committee. The other governors are advisory to the executive committee and do not have voting rights. The University of California is entitled to appoint three governors to

4214-705: The LVOC will consist of an approximately 110-acre parcel along the eastern edge of the Livermore Laboratory and Sandia sites, and will house additional conference space, collaboration facilities and a visitor center to support educational and research activities. Objectives of LVOC LLNL's principal sponsor is the Department of Energy / National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) Office of Defense Programs, which supports its stockpile stewardship and advanced scientific computing programs. Funding to support LLNL's global security and homeland security work comes from

4312-650: The Lab had four main programs: Project Sherwood (the magnetic-fusion program), Project Whitney (the weapons-design program), diagnostic weapon experiments (both for the Los Alamos and Livermore laboratories), and a basic physics program. York and the new lab embraced the Lawrence "big science" approach, tackling challenging projects with physicists, chemists, engineers, and computational scientists working together in multidisciplinary teams. Lawrence died in August 1958 and shortly after,

4410-558: The Laboratory Director in 1973, during the 1973 oil crisis . He established the Energy and Environment Division at the Lab, expanding for the first time into applied research that addressed the energy and environmental challenges the country faced. Sessler also joined with other Berkeley physicists to form an organization called Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov, Sharansky (SOS), which led an international protest movement calling attention to

4508-514: The Laboratory entered a period of intensive modernization: an unprecedented number of major projects to upgrade existing scientific facilities and to build new ones. Berkeley Lab physicists led the construction of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument , which is designed to create three-dimensional maps of the distribution of matter covering an unprecedented volume of the universe with unparalleled detail. The new instrument

4606-489: The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are LLNL HRS (hot-recycled-solid), LLNL RISE ( in situ extraction technology) and LLNL radiofrequency technologies. Over its 60-year history, Lawrence Livermore has made many scientific and technological achievements, including: On July 17, 2009 LLNL announced that the Laboratory had received eight R&D 100 Awards – more than it had ever received in

4704-408: The Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 for this discovery. On August 1, 2004, Nobel-winning physicist Steven Chu was named the sixth Director of Berkeley Lab. The DOE was preparing to compete the management and operations (M&O) contract for Berkeley Lab for the first time, and Chu's first task was to lead the University of California's team that successfully bid for that contract. The initial term of

4802-452: The RRW. LLNL conducts research into the properties and behavior of plutonium to learn how plutonium performs as it ages and how it behaves under high pressure (e.g., with the impact of high explosives). Plutonium has seven temperature-dependent solid allotropes . Each possesses a different density and crystal structure . Alloys of plutonium are even more complex; multiple phases can be present in

4900-594: The Secretary of Energy. The University of California chose the Lab's Deputy Director, Paul Alivisatos , as the new director. Alivisatos is a materials chemist who won the National Medal of Science for his pioneering work in developing nanomaterials. He continued the Lab's focus on renewable energy and climate change. The DOE established the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) as an Energy Innovation Hub in 2010, with California Institute of Technology as

4998-578: The SuperBlock, with emphasis on safety and security. Work with highly enriched uranium is also conducted there. In March 2008, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) presented its preferred alternative for the transformation of the nation's nuclear weapons complex. Under this plan, LLNL would be a center of excellence for nuclear design and engineering, a center of excellence for high explosive research and development, and

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5096-486: The University of California, which had exclusively managed and operated the Laboratory since its inception 55 years before. The laboratory was honored in 2012 by having the synthetic chemical element livermorium named after it. The LLNS takeover of the laboratory has been controversial. In May 2013, an Alameda County jury awarded over $ 2.7 million to five former laboratory employees who were among 430 employees LLNS laid off during 2008. The jury found that LLNS breached

5194-576: The University) became the basic unit of the massive Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge , Tennessee . Lawrence's lab helped contribute to what have been judged to be the three most valuable technology developments of the war (the atomic bomb, proximity fuze , and radar ). The cyclotron, whose construction was stalled during the war, was finished in November 1946. The Manhattan Project shut down two months later. After

5292-405: The annual competition. The previous LLNL record of seven awards was reached five times – in 1987, 1988, 1997, 1998 and 2006. Also known as the "Oscars of invention", the awards are given each year for the development of cutting-edge scientific and engineering technologies with commercial potential. The awards raise LLNL's total number of awards since 1978 to 129. On October 12, 2016, LLNL released

5390-510: The city's boundaries to annex LLNL and move it within the city limits. The unanimous vote by the Livermore city council expanded Livermore's southeastern boundaries to cover 15 land parcels covering 1,057 acres (4.28 km) that comprise the LLNL site. The site was formerly an unincorporated area of Alameda County. The LLNL campus continues to be owned by the federal government. From its inception, Livermore focused on new weapon design concepts; as

5488-651: The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. LLNL staff have been heavily involved in the cooperative nonproliferation programs with Russia to secure at-risk weapons materials and assist former weapons workers in developing peaceful applications and self-sustaining job opportunities for their expertise and technologies. In the mid-1990s, Lab scientists began efforts to devise improved biodetection capabilities, leading to miniaturized and autonomous instruments that can detect biothreat agents in

5586-551: The contract was from June 1, 2005, to May 31, 2010, with possible phased extensions for superior management performance up to a total contract term of 20 years. In 2007, Berkeley Lab launched the Joint BioEnergy Institute , one of three Bioenergy Research Centers to receive funding from the Genomic Science Program of DOE's Office for Biological and Environmental Research (BER). JBEI's Chief Executive Officer

5684-569: The death of Lawrence in August 1958, the UC Radiation Laboratory (UCRL), including both the Berkeley and Livermore sites, was renamed Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. The Berkeley location became Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1971, although many continued to call it the RadLab. Gradually, another shortened form came into common usage, LBL. Its formal name was amended to Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1995, when "National"

5782-466: The deputy laboratory director. Federally funded research and development centers During World War II scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and other specialists became part of the massive United States war effort—leading to evolutions in radar, aircraft, computing and, most famously, the development of nuclear weapons through the Manhattan Project . The end of armed conflict did not end

5880-478: The design and construction of several liquid hydrogen bubble chambers, which were used to discover a large number of new elementary particles using Bevatron beams. His group also developed measuring systems to record the millions of photographs of particle tracks in the bubble chamber and computer systems to analyze the data. Alvarez won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1968 for the discovery of many elementary particles using this technique. The Alvarez Physics Memos are

5978-406: The detonation of the Soviet Union 's first atomic bomb during the Cold War . It later became autonomous in 1971 and was designated a national laboratory in 1981. A federally funded research and development center , Lawrence Livermore Lab is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and it is managed privately and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (a partnership of

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6076-557: The development of ZFS on Linux, the official port of ZFS to the Linux operating system. In August 2009, a joint venture was announced between Sandia National Laboratories /California campus and LLNL to create an open, unclassified research and development space called the Livermore Valley Open Campus (LVOC). The motivation for the LVOC stems from current and future national security challenges that require increased coupling to

6174-703: The early universe. He became the principal investigator for the Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) instrument that was launched in 1989 as part of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission. The full sky maps taken by the DMR made it possible for COBE scientists to discover the anisotropy of the CMB, and Smoot shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2006 with John Mather. Charles V. Shank left Bell Labs to become Director of Berkeley Lab in 1989,

6272-538: The executive committee, including the chair. Bechtel is also entitled to appoint three governors to the executive committee, including the vice chair. One of the Bechtel governors must be a representative of Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) or the Washington Division of URS Corporation (URS), who is nominated jointly by B&W and URS each year, and who must be approved and appointed by Bechtel. The executive committee has

6370-429: The executive committee. The board of governors is the ultimate governing body of LLNS and is charged with overseeing the affairs of LLNS in its operations and management of LLNL. LLNS managers and employees who work at LLNL, up to and including the president and laboratory director, are generally referred to as laboratory employees. All laboratory employees report directly or indirectly to the LLNS president. While most of

6468-501: The existing University of California Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley . The lab at Livermore was intended to spur innovation and provide competition to the nuclear weapon design laboratory at Los Alamos in New Mexico , home of the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic weapons . The Livermore facility was co-founded by Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence , director of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley. The new laboratory

6566-478: The expertise and resources in genome mapping, DNA sequencing, technology development, and information sciences that had developed at the DOE genome centers at Berkeley Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The JGI was originally established to work on the Human Genome Project (HGP), and generated the complete sequences of Chromosomes 5, 16 and 19. In 2004,

6664-550: The first energy-efficiency standards for buildings and appliances in California, which helped the state to sustain constant electricity use per capita from 1973 to 2006, while it rose by 50% in the rest of the country. This phenomenon is called the Rosenfeld Effect . By 1980, George Smoot had built up a strong experimental group in Berkeley, building instruments to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in order to study

6762-411: The first fusion reactor to achieve breakeven on December 5, 2022, with an experiment producing 3.15 megajoules of energy from a 2.05 megajoule input of laser light for an energy gain of about 1.5. Throughout its history, LLNL has been a leader in computers and scientific computing. Even before the Livermore Lab opened its doors, E.O. Lawrence and Edward Teller recognized the importance of computing and

6860-467: The government—free of organizational conflicts of interest and with a stable workforce of highly trained technical talent. The U.S. Air Force created the first FFRDC, the RAND Corporation , in 1947. Others grew directly out of their wartime roles. For example, MIT Lincoln Laboratory , founded in 1951, originated as the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, and the Navy's Operation Research Group evolved into

6958-575: The lab overlooks the campus of the University of California, Berkeley . The mission of Berkeley Lab is to bring science solutions to the world. The research at Berkeley Lab has four main themes: discovery science, clean energy, healthy earth and ecological systems, and the future of science. The Laboratory's 22 scientific divisions are organized within six areas of research: Computing Sciences, Physical Sciences, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Biosciences, Energy Sciences, and Energy Technologies. Lab founder Ernest Lawrence believed that scientific research

7056-620: The lead institution and Berkeley Lab as the lead partner. The Lab built a new facility to house the JCAP laboratories and collaborative research space, and it was dedicated as Chu Hall in 2015. After JCAP operated for ten years, in 2020 the Berkeley team became a major partner in a new Energy Innovation Hub, the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA), with the vision of establishing the science needed to generate liquid fuels economically from sunlight, water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The Lab also

7154-469: The need for organized research and development in support of the government. As the Cold War became the new reality, government officials and their scientific advisors advanced the idea of a systematic approach to research, development, and acquisitions—one independent of the ups and downs of the marketplace and free of the restrictions on civil service. From this idea arose the concept of FFRDCs—private entities that would work almost exclusively on behalf of

7252-420: The parent companies. The LLNS executive committee is free to appoint officers or other managers of LLNS and LLNL, and may delegate its authorities as it deems appropriate to such officers, employees, or other representatives of LLNS/LLNL. The executive committee may also retain auditors, attorneys, or other professionals as necessary. For the most part the executive committee has appointed senior managers at LLNL as

7350-594: The plight of three Soviet scientists who were being persecuted by the U.S.S.R. government. Arthur Rosenfeld led the campaign to build up applied energy research at Berkeley Lab. He became widely known as the father of energy efficiency and the person who convinced the nation to adopt energy standards for appliances and buildings. Inspired by the 1973 oil crisis , he started up large team efforts that developed several technologies that radically improved energy efficiency. These included compact fluorescent lamps, low-energy refrigerators, and windows that trap heat. He developed

7448-568: The potential of computational simulation. Their purchase of one of the first UNIVAC computers set the precedent for LLNL's history of acquiring and exploiting the fastest and most capable supercomputers in the world. A succession of increasingly powerful and fast computers have been used at the Lab over the years in support of the stockpile stewardship mission. LLNL researchers also use supercomputers to answer questions about subjects such as materials science simulations, climate change, reactions to natural disasters, and other physical phenomena. LLNL has

7546-409: The president of LLNS. Over the course of its history, the following scientists have served as LLNL director: The LLNL director is supported by a senior executive team consisting of the deputy director, the deputy director for science and technology, principal associate directors, and other senior executives who manage areas/functions directly reporting to the laboratory director. The director's office

7644-422: The primary officers of LLNS. As a practical matter most operational decisions are delegated to the president of LLNS, who is also the laboratory director. The positions of president laboratory director and deputy laboratory director are filled by joint action of the chair and vice chair of the executive committee, with the University of California nominating the president and laboratory director and Bechtel nominating

7742-572: The private sector to understand threats and deploy solutions in areas such as high performance computing, energy and environmental security, cyber security, economic security, and non-proliferation. The LVOC is modeled after research and development campuses found at major industrial research parks and other U.S. Department of Energy laboratories with campus-like security, a set of business and operating rules devised to enhance and accelerate international scientific collaboration and partnerships with U.S. government agencies, industry and academia. Ultimately,

7840-620: The program comes from the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, through the Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program. Berkeley Lab manages the program in close partnership with Activate , a nonprofit organization established to scale the Cyclotron Road fellowship model to a greater number of innovators around the U.S. and the world. Cyclotron Road fellows receive two years of stipend, over $ 100,000 of research support, intensive mentorship and

7938-465: The results of computerized modeling of Mars's moon Phobos , finding that it has a connection with keeping the Earth safe from asteroids. In December, 2022 scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced, in a breakthrough for fusion power technology, that they have used the technique of inertial confinement fusion to achieve a net gain of energy. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) became

8036-703: The safety, security, and reliability of existing nuclear warheads without the use of nuclear testing. Confidence in the performance of weapons, without nuclear testing, is maintained through an ongoing process of stockpile surveillance, assessment and certification, and refurbishment or weapon replacement. With no new designs of nuclear weapons, the warheads in the U.S. stockpile must continue to function far past their original expected lifetimes. As components and materials age, problems can arise. Stockpile Life Extension Programs can extend system lifetimes, but they also can introduce performance uncertainties and require maintenance of outdated technologies and materials. Because there

8134-584: The speed of light, so a new approach was needed. Edwin McMillan co-invented the synchrotron with Vladimir Veksler to address the problem. McMillan built an electron synchrotron capable of accelerating electrons to 300 million electron volts (300 MeV), which was operated from 1948 to 1960. The Berkeley accelerator team built the Bevatron , a proton synchrotron capable of accelerating protons to an energy of 6.5 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), an energy chosen to be just above

8232-555: The threshold for producing antiprotons. In 1955, during the Bevatron's first full year of operation, Physicists Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain won the competition to observe the antiprotons for the first time. They won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1959 for this discovery. The Bevatron remained the highest energy accelerator until the CERN Proton Synchrotron started accelerating protons to 25 GeV in 1959. Luis Alvarez led

8330-411: The university grounds, and in 1940 the lab moved to its current site atop the hill above campus. Part of the team put together during this period includes two other young scientists who went on to direct large laboratories: J. Robert Oppenheimer , who directed Los Alamos Laboratory , and Robert Wilson , who directed Fermilab . Leslie Groves visited Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory in late 1942 as he

8428-494: The university in the Berkeley Hills. Altogether, the Lab has 3,663 UC employees, of whom about 800 are students or postdocs, and each year it hosts more than 3,000 participating guest scientists. There are approximately two dozen DOE employees stationed at the laboratory to provide federal oversight of Berkeley Lab's work for the DOE. The laboratory director, Michael Witherell, is appointed by the university regents and reports to

8526-472: The university's board of regents named both laboratories for him, as the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory . Historically, the Berkeley and Livermore laboratories have had very close relationships on research projects, business operations, and staff. The Livermore Lab was established initially as a branch of the Berkeley laboratory. The Livermore lab was not officially severed administratively from

8624-468: The war, the Radiation Laboratory became one of the first laboratories to be incorporated into the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) (now Department of Energy, DOE). In 1952, the Laboratory established a branch in Livermore focused on nuclear security work, which developed into Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory . Some classified research continued at Berkeley Lab until the 1970s, when it became

8722-415: The work performed by LLNL is funded by the federal government, laboratory employees are paid by LLNS, which is responsible for all aspects of their employment, including providing health care benefits and retirement programs. Within the board of governors, authority resides in the executive committee to exercise all rights, powers, and authorities of LLNS, excepting only certain decisions that are reserved to

8820-475: The world in physical sciences and chemistry, as measured by Nature Index . The only institutions with higher ranking are the entire national government research agencies for China, France, and Italy, each of which is comparable to the complete network of 17 United States Department of Energy National Laboratories . Using the same metric, the Lab is the second-ranking laboratory in the area of earth and environmental sciences. Much of Berkeley Lab's research impact

8918-422: Was 2014. NNSA and LLNL developed a timeline to remove this material as early as possible, accelerating the target completion date to 2012. The Lab's work in global security aims to reduce and mitigate the dangers posed by the spread or use of weapons of mass destruction and by threats to energy and environmental security. Livermore has been working on global security and homeland security for decades, predating both

9016-401: Was added to the names of all DOE labs. "Ernest Orlando" was later dropped to shorten the name. Today, the lab is commonly referred to as Berkeley Lab. The University of California operates Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory under a contract with the Department of Energy. The site consists of 76 buildings (owned by the U.S. Department of Energy ) located on 200 acres (0.81 km ) owned by

9114-534: Was dedicated in 2006, with Bertozzi as Foundry Director and Steven Chu as Laboratory Director. In the 1990s, Saul Perlmutter led the Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP), which used a certain type of supernovas as standard candles to study the expansion of the universe. The SCP team co-discovered the accelerating expansion of the universe, leading to the concept of dark energy , an unknown form of energy that drives this acceleration. Perlmutter shared

9212-431: Was installed on the retrofitted Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in 2019. The five-year mission started in 2021, and the map assembled with data taken in the first seven months already included more galaxies than any previous survey. On September 27, 2016, The DOE gave approval of the mission need for ALS-U, a major project to upgrade the Advanced Light Source that includes constructing

9310-433: Was organizing the Manhattan Project , meeting J. Robert Oppenheimer for the first time. Oppenheimer was tasked with organizing the nuclear bomb development effort and founded today's Los Alamos National Laboratory to help keep the work secret. At the RadLab, Lawrence and his colleagues developed the technique of electromagnetic enrichment of uranium using their experience with cyclotrons. The calutrons (named after

9408-633: Was part of NNSA's efforts initiated in October 2006 to consolidate special nuclear material at five sites by 2012, with significantly reduced square footage at those sites by 2017. The federally mandated project intends to improve security and reduce security costs, and is part of NNSA's overall effort to transform the Cold War era "nuclear weapons" enterprise into a 21st-century "nuclear security" enterprise. The original date to remove all high-security nuclear material from LLNL, based on equipment capability and capacity,

9506-599: Was sited at a former naval air station from World War II . It was already home to several University of California Radiation Laboratory projects that were too large for its location in the Berkeley Hills above the UC campus, including one of the first experiments in the magnetic approach to confined thermonuclear reactions (i.e. fusion). About half an hour southeast of Berkeley, the Livermore site provided much greater security for classified projects than an urban university campus. Lawrence tapped his former graduate student Herbert York , age 32, to run Livermore. Under York,

9604-498: Was stepping down from his role as Laboratory Director. He took two leadership positions at the University of California, Berkeley, before becoming President of the University of Chicago in 2021. The University of California selected Michael Witherell , formerly the Director of Fermilab and Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara as the eighth director of Berkeley Lab starting on March 1, 2016. In 2016,

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