Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy, 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.
Los Alamos was established in 1943 as Project Y, a top-secret site for designing nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project during World War II. Chosen for its remote yet relatively accessible location, it served as the main hub for conducting and coordinating nuclear research, bringing together some of the world's most famous scientists, among them numerous Nobel Prize winners. The town of Los Alamos, directly north of the lab, grew extensively through this period.
After the war ended in 1945, Project Y's existence was made public, and it became known universally as Los Alamos. In 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission formed a second design lab under the direction of the University of California, Berkeley, which became Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The two labs competed on a wide variety of bomb designs, but with the end of the Cold War, have focused increasingly on civilian missions. Today, Los Alamos conducts multidisciplinary research in fields such as national security, space exploration, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing.
While owned by the federal government, LANL is privately managed and operated by Triad National Security, LLC.
History
The Manhattan Project
The laboratory was founded during World War II as a secret, centralized facility to coordinate the scientific research of the Manhattan Project, the Allied project to develop the first nuclear weapons. In September 1942, the difficulties encountered in conducting preliminary studies on nuclear weapons at universities scattered across the country indicated the need for a laboratory dedicated solely to that purpose.General Leslie Groves wanted a central laboratory at an isolated location for safety, and to keep the scientists away from the populace. It should be at least 200 miles from international boundaries and west of the Mississippi. Major John Dudley suggested Oak City, Utah, or Jemez Springs, New Mexico, but both were rejected. Jemez Springs was only a short distance from the current site. Project Y director J. Robert Oppenheimer had spent much time in his youth in the New Mexico area and suggested the Los Alamos Ranch School on the mesa. Dudley had rejected the school as not meeting Groves' criteria, but as soon as Groves saw it he said in effect "This is the place." Oppenheimer became the laboratory's first director; from 19 October 1942.
During the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos hosted thousands of employees, including many Nobel Prize-winning scientists. The location was a total secret. Its only mailing address was a post office box, number 1663, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Eventually two other post office boxes were used, 180 and 1539, also in Santa Fe. Though its contract with the University of California was initially intended to be temporary, the relationship was maintained long after the war. Until the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, University of California president Robert Sproul did not know what the purpose of the laboratory was and thought it might be producing a "death ray." The only member of the UC administration who knew its true purpose—indeed, the only one who knew its exact physical location—was the Secretary-Treasurer Robert Underhill, who was in charge of wartime contracts and liabilities. He first visited the site in mid-March 1943 and was informed of the project objective by Ernest Lawrence in November 1943.
The work of the laboratory culminated in several atomic devices, one of which was used in the first nuclear test near Alamogordo, New Mexico, codenamed "Trinity," on July 16, 1945. The other two were weapons, "Little Boy" and "Fat Man," which were used in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Laboratory received the Army-Navy "E" Award for Excellence in production on October 16, 1945.
Post-war
After the war, Oppenheimer retired from the directorship, and it was taken over by Norris Bradbury, whose initial mission was to make the previously hand-assembled atomic bombs "G.I. proof" so that they could be mass-produced and used without the assistance of highly trained scientists. Other founding members of Los Alamos left the laboratory and became outspoken opponents to the further development of nuclear weapons.The name officially changed to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory on January 1, 1947. By this time, Argonne had already been made the first National Laboratory the previous year. Los Alamos would not become a National Laboratory in name until 1981.
In the years since the 1940s, Los Alamos was responsible for the development of the hydrogen bomb, and many other variants of nuclear weapons. In 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was founded to act as Los Alamos' "competitor," with the hope that two laboratories for the design of nuclear weapons would spur innovation. Los Alamos and Livermore served as the primary classified laboratories in the U.S. national laboratory system, designing all the country's nuclear arsenal. Additional work included basic scientific research, particle accelerator development, health physics, and fusion power research as part of Project Sherwood. Many nuclear tests were undertaken in the Marshall Islands and at the Nevada Test Site. During the late-1950s, a number of scientists including Dr. J. Robert "Bob" Beyster left Los Alamos to work for General Atomics in San Diego.
Three major nuclear-related accidents have occurred at LANL. Criticality accidents occurred in August 1945 and May 1946, and a third accident occurred during an annual physical inventory in December 1958.
Several buildings associated with the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Post-Cold War
At the end of the Cold War, both labs went through a process of intense scientific diversification in their research programs to adapt to the changing political conditions that no longer required as much research towards developing new nuclear weapons and has led the lab to increase research for "non-war" science and technology. Los Alamos' nuclear work is currently thought to relate primarily to computer simulations and stockpile stewardship. The development of the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility will allow complex simulations of nuclear tests to take place without full explosive yields.The laboratory contributed to the early development of the flow cytometry technology. In the 1950s, researcher Mack Fulwyler developed a technique for sorting erythrocytes that combined the Coulter Principle of Coulter counter technologies, which measures the presence of cells and their size, with ink jet technology, which produces a laminar flow of liquid that breaks up into separate, fine drops. In 1969, Los Alamos reported the first fluorescence detector apparatus, which accurately measured the number and size of ovarian cells and blood cells.
As of 2017, other research performed at the lab included developing cheaper, cleaner biofuels and advancing scientific understanding around renewable energy.
Non-nuclear national security and defense development is also a priority at the lab. This includes preventing outbreaks of deadly diseases by improving detection tools and the monitoring the effectiveness of the United States' vaccine distribution infrastructure. Additional advancements include the ASPECT airplane that can detect bio threats from the sky.
Medical work
In 2008, development for a safer, more comfortable and accurate test for breast cancer was ongoing by scientists Lianjie Huang and Kenneth M. Hanson and collaborators. The new technique, called ultrasound-computed tomography, uses sound waves to accurately detect small tumors that traditional mammography cannot.The lab has made intense efforts for humanitarian causes through its scientific research in medicine. In 2010, three vaccines for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus were being tested by lab scientist Bette Korber and her team. "These vaccines might finally deal a lethal blow to the AIDS virus", says Chang-Shung Tung, leader of the Lab's Theoretical Biology and Biophysics group.
Negative publicity
The laboratory has attracted negative publicity from a number of events. In 1999, Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was accused of 59 counts of mishandling classified information by downloading nuclear secrets—"weapons codes" used for computer simulations of nuclear weapons tests—to data tapes and removing them from the lab. After ten months in jail, Lee pleaded guilty to a single count of unauthorized possession of documents, but the other 58 were dismissed with an apology from U.S. District Judge James Parker for his incarceration. Lee had been suspected for having shared U.S. nuclear secrets with China, but investigators were never able to establish what Lee did with the downloaded data.In 2000, two computer hard drives containing classified data were announced to have gone missing from a secure area within the laboratory, but were later found behind a photocopier.
Science mission
Los Alamos National Laboratory's mission is to "solve national security challenges through simultaneous excellence". The laboratory's strategic plan reflects U.S. priorities spanning nuclear security, intelligence, defense, emergency response, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, energy security, emerging threats, and environmental management. This strategy is aligned with priorities set by the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and national strategy guidance documents, such as the Nuclear Posture Review, the National Security Strategy, and the Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future.Los Alamos is the senior laboratory in the DOE system, and executes work in all areas of the DOE mission: national security, science, energy, and environmental management. The laboratory also performs work for the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and Department of Homeland Security, among others. The laboratory's multidisciplinary scientific capabilities and activities are organized into six Capability Pillars:
- Information, Science and Technology
- Materials for the Future seeks to optimize materials for national security applications by predicting and controlling their performance and functionality through discovery science and engineering.
- Nuclear and Particle Futures integrates nuclear experiments, theory, and simulation to understand and engineer complex nuclear phenomena.
- Science of Signatures applies science and technology to intransigent problems of system identification and characterization in areas of global security, nuclear defense, energy, and health.
- Complex Natural and Engineered Systems
- Weapons Systems
- The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies: The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies is a DOE/Office of Science National User Facility operated jointly by Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories with facilities at both Laboratories. CINT is dedicated to establishing the scientific principles that govern the design, performance, and integration of nanoscale materials into microscale and macroscale systems and devices.
- Los Alamos Neutron Science Center : The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center is one of the world's most powerful linear accelerators. LANSCE provides the scientific community with intense sources of neutrons with the capability of performing experiments supporting civilian and national security research. This facility is sponsored by the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Science and Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology.
- The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Pulsed Field Facility: The Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, is one of three campuses of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the other two being at Florida State University, Tallahassee and the University of Florida. The Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory operates an international user program for research in high magnetic fields.