Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the

United States Department of Energy 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 manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

. The facility is located in

Lemont, Illinois Lemont is a village located in Cook, DuPage, and Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a south-west suburb of Chicago. The population was 17,629 as of the 2020 census. The village is situated on a hillside along the south banks of ...

, outside of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, and is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest. Argonne had its beginnings in the Metallurgical Laboratory of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, formed in part to carry out

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...

's work on

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...

s for the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After the war, it was designated as the first national laboratory in the United States on July 1, 1946. In the post-war era the lab focused primarily on non-weapon related nuclear physics, designing and building the first power-producing nuclear reactors, helping design the reactors used by the United States'

nuclear navy A nuclear navy, or nuclear-powered navy, refers to the portion of a navy consisting of naval ships powered by nuclear marine propulsion. The concept was revolutionary for naval warfare when first proposed. Prior to nuclear power, submarines were ...

, and a wide variety of similar projects. In 1994, the lab's nuclear mission ended, and today it maintains a broad portfolio in basic science research,

energy storage Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery. Energy comes in ...

and

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

, environmental sustainability, supercomputing, and

national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...

. UChicago Argonne, LLC, the operator of the laboratory, "brings together the expertise of the University of Chicago (the sole member of the LLC) with Jacobs Engineering Group Inc." Argonne is a part of the expanding

Illinois Technology and Research Corridor Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockfor ...

. Argonne formerly ran a smaller facility called Argonne National Laboratory-West (or simply Argonne-West) in Idaho next to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. In 2005, the two Idaho-based laboratories merged to become the

Idaho National Laboratory Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. While the laboratory does other research, historically it has been involved with nu ...

Overview

Argonne has five main areas of focus. These goals, as stated by the DOE in 2008, consist of: * Conducting basic scientific research; * Operating national scientific facilities; * Enhancing the nation's energy resources; * Developing better ways to manage environmental problems; * Protecting national security.

History

What would become Argonne began in 1942 as the Metallurgical Laboratory at the

, which had become part of the

. The Met Lab built

Chicago Pile-1 Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of t ...

, the world's first

, under the stands of the University of Chicago sports stadium. Considered unsafe, in 1943, CP-1 was reconstructed as CP-2, in what is today known as Red Gate Woods but was then the Argonne Forest in the

Forest Preserve District of Cook County The Forest Preserve District of Cook County is a governmental commission in Cook County, Illinois, that owns and manages a network of open spaces, containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes, that are mostly set aside as natural areas ...

near Palos Hills. The lab was named after the surrounding forest, which in turn was named after the

Forest of Argonne The Forest of Argonne () is a long strip of mountainous and wild woodland in northeastern France, approximately east of Paris. The forest measures roughly long and wide filled with many small hills and deep valleys formed by water run-off fro ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

where U.S. troops fought in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Fermi's pile was originally going to be constructed in the Argonne forest, and construction plans were set in motion, but a labor dispute brought the project to a halt. Since speed was paramount, the project was moved to the squash court under Stagg Field, the football stadium on the campus of the University of Chicago. Fermi told them that he was sure of his calculations, which said that it would not lead to a runaway reaction, which would have contaminated the city. Other activities were added to Argonne over the next five years. On July 1, 1946, the "Metallurgical Laboratory" was formally re-chartered as Argonne National Laboratory for "cooperative research in nucleonics." At the request of the

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President ...

, it began developing nuclear reactors for the nation's peaceful nuclear energy program. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the laboratory moved to a larger location in unincorporated

DuPage County, Illinois DuPage County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, and one of the collar counties of the Chicago metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 932,877, making it Illinois' second-most populous county. Its county seat is ...

and established a remote location in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

, called "Argonne-West," to conduct further nuclear research. In quick succession, the laboratory designed and built Chicago Pile 3 (1944), the world's first heavy-water moderated reactor, and the

Experimental Breeder Reactor I Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) is a decommissioned research reactor and U.S. National Historic Landmark located in the desert about southeast of Arco, Idaho. It was the world's first breeder reactor. At 1:50 p.m. on December 20, 1 ...

(Chicago Pile 4), built-in Idaho, which lit a string of four light bulbs with the world's first nuclear-generated electricity in 1951. The BWR power station reactor, now the second most popular design worldwide, came from the

BORAX experiments The BORAX Experiments were a series of safety experiments on boiling water nuclear reactors conducted by Argonne National Laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s at the National Reactor Testing Station in eastern Idaho.

. A complete list of the reactors designed and, in most cases, built and operated by Argonne can be viewed on the
Reactors Designed by Argonne
page. The knowledge gained from the Argonne experiments conducted with these reactors 1) formed the foundation for the designs of most of the commercial reactors currently used throughout the world for electric power generation and 2) inform the current evolving designs of liquid-metal reactors for future commercial power stations. Conducting classified research, the laboratory was heavily secured; all employees and visitors needed badges to pass a checkpoint, many of the buildings were classified, and the laboratory itself was fenced and guarded. Such alluring secrecy drew visitors both authorized—including

King Leopold III of Belgium Leopold III (3 November 1901 – 25 September 1983) was King of the Belgians from 23 February 1934 until his abdication on 16 July 1951. At the outbreak of World War II, Leopold tried to maintain Belgian neutrality, but after the German invasi ...

and Queen Frederica of Greece—and unauthorized. Shortly past 1 a.m. on February 6, 1951, Argonne guards discovered reporter

Paul Harvey Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast ''News and Comment'' on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous ''The Rest o ...

near the perimeter fence, his coat tangled in the barbed wire. Searching his car, guards found a previously prepared four-page broadcast detailing the saga of his unauthorized entrance into a classified "hot zone". He was brought before a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to obtain information on national security and transmit it to the public, but was not indicted. Not all nuclear technology went into developing reactors, however. While designing a scanner for reactor fuel elements in 1957, Argonne physicist William Nelson Beck put his own arm inside the scanner and obtained one of the first

ultrasound Ultrasound is sound waves with frequency, frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing range, hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hea ...

images of the human body. Remote manipulators designed to handle radioactive materials laid the groundwork for more complex machines used to clean up contaminated areas, sealed laboratories or caves. In 1964, the "Janus" reactor opened to study the effects of neutron radiation on biological life, providing research for guidelines on safe exposure levels for workers at power plants, laboratories and hospitals. Scientists at Argonne pioneered a technique to analyze the moon's surface using

alpha radiation Alpha decay or α-decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle (helium nucleus) and thereby transforms or 'decays' into a different atomic nucleus, with a mass number that is reduced by four and an at ...

, which launched aboard the

Surveyor 5 Surveyor 5 was the fifth lunar lander of the American uncrewed Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon. Surveyor 5 landed on Mare Tranquillitatis in 1967. A total of 19,118 images were transmitted to Earth. Mission The mission ...

in 1967 and later analyzed lunar samples from the

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, an ...

mission. In addition to nuclear work, the laboratory maintained a strong presence in the basic research of

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

. In 1955, Argonne chemists co-discovered the elements

einsteinium Einsteinium is a synthetic element with the symbol Es and atomic number 99. Einsteinium is a member of the actinide series and it is the seventh transuranium element. It was named in honor of Albert Einstein. Einsteinium was discovered as a com ...

and

fermium Fermium is a synthetic element with the symbol Fm and atomic number 100. It is an actinide and the heaviest element that can be formed by neutron bombardment of lighter elements, and hence the last element that can be prepared in macroscopic qua ...

, elements 99 and 100 in the

periodic table The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ch ...

. In 1962, laboratory chemists produced the first compound of the inert

noble gas The noble gases (historically also the inert gases; sometimes referred to as aerogens) make up a class of chemical elements with similar properties; under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases with very low chemi ...

xenon Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

, opening up a new field of chemical bonding research. In 1963, they discovered the

hydrated electron A solvated electron is a free electron in (solvated in) a solution, and is the smallest possible anion. Solvated electrons occur widely. Often, discussions of solvated electrons focus on their solutions in ammonia, which are stable for days, but s ...

. High-energy physics made a leap forward when Argonne was chosen as the site of the 12.5 GeV

Zero Gradient Synchrotron The Zero Gradient Synchrotron (ZGS), was a weak focusing 12.5 GeV proton accelerator that operated at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois from 1964 to 1979. It enabled pioneering experiments in particle physics, in the areas of * quark ...

, a

proton accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel electric charge, charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined particle beam, beams. Large accelerators are used for fun ...

that opened in 1963. A

bubble chamber A bubble chamber is a vessel filled with a superheated transparent liquid (most often liquid hydrogen) used to detect electrically charged particles moving through it. It was invented in 1952 by Donald A. Glaser, for which he was awarded the 196 ...

allowed scientists to track the motions of

subatomic particle In physical sciences, a subatomic particle is a particle that composes an atom. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, a subatomic particle can be either a composite particle, which is composed of other particles (for example, a pr ...

s as they zipped through the chamber; in 1970, they observed the

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...

in a hydrogen bubble chamber for the first time. Meanwhile, the laboratory was also helping to design the reactor for the world's first

nuclear-powered Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

, the U.S.S. ''Nautilus'', which steamed for more than 513,550 nautical miles (951,090 km). The next nuclear reactor model was Experimental

Boiling Water Reactor A boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of light water nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is a design different from a Soviet graphite-moderated RBMK. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nu ...

, the forerunner of many modern nuclear plants, and

Experimental Breeder Reactor II Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) is a sodium-cooled fast reactor designed, built and operated by Argonne National Laboratory at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.

(EBR-II), which was sodium-cooled, and included a fuel recycling facility. EBR-II was later modified to test other reactor designs, including a

fast-neutron reactor A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons (carrying energies above 1 MeV or greater, on average), as opposed t ...

and, in 1982, the

Integral Fast Reactor The integral fast reactor (IFR, originally Liquid metal cooled reactor, advanced liquid-metal reactor) is a design for a nuclear reactor using fast neutrons and no neutron moderator (a Fast-neutron reactor, "fast" reactor). IFR would breed more f ...

concept—a revolutionary design that reprocessed its own fuel, reduced its atomic waste and withstood safety tests of the same failures that triggered the

Chernobyl Chernobyl ( , ; russian: Чернобыль, ) or Chornobyl ( uk, Чорнобиль, ) is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Chernobyl is about no ...

and

Three Mile Island 3 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 3, three, or III may also refer to: * AD 3, the third year of the AD era * 3 BC, the third year before the AD era * March, the third month Books * ''Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 ...

disasters. In 1994, however, the U.S. Congress terminated funding for the bulk of Argonne's nuclear programs. Argonne moved to specialize in other areas, while capitalizing on its experience in physics, chemical sciences and

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

. In 1987, the laboratory was the first to successfully demonstrate a pioneering technique called plasma wakefield acceleration, which accelerates particles in much shorter distances than conventional accelerators. It also cultivated a strong

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

research program. Following a major push by then-director Alan Schriesheim, the laboratory was chosen as the site of the

Advanced Photon Source The Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory (in Lemont, Illinois) is a storage-ring-based high-energy X-ray light source facility. It is one of five X-ray light sources owned and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office ...

, a major X-ray facility which was completed in 1995 and produced the brightest X-rays in the world at the time of its construction. On 19 March 2019, it was reported in the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' that the laboratory was constructing the world's most powerful supercomputer. Costing $500 million it will have the processing power of 1 quintillion flops. Applications will include the analysis of stars and improvements in the power grid.

Directors

Over the course of its history, 13 individuals have served as Argonne Director: * 1946–1956

Walter Zinn Walter Henry Zinn (December 10, 1906 – February 14, 2000) was an American nuclear physicist who was the first director of the Argonne National Laboratory from 1946 to 1956. He worked at the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory during W ...

* 1957–1961

Norman Hilberry Norman Hilberry (March 11, 1899 – March 28, 1986) was an American physicist, best known as the director of the Argonne National Laboratory from 1956 to 1961. In December 1942 he was the man who stood ready with an axe to cut the scram line duri ...

* 1961–1967 Albert V. Crewe * 1967–1973 Robert B. Duffield * 1973–1979 Robert G. Sachs * 1979–1984 Walter E. Massey * 1984–1996 Alan Schriesheim * 1996–1998 Dean E. Eastman * 2000–2005 Hermann A. Grunder * 2005–2008 Robert Rosner * 2009–2014 Eric Isaacs * 2014–2016 Peter Littlewood * 2017–Present Paul Kearns

Initiatives

Mira - Blue Gene Q at Argonne National Laboratory

*Hard X-ray Sciences: Argonne is home to one of the world's largest high-energy light sources: the

(APS). Each year, scientists make thousands of discoveries while using the APS to characterize both organic and inorganic materials and even processes, such as how vehicle

fuel injector Fuel injection is the introduction of fuel in an internal combustion engine, most commonly automotive engines, by the means of an injector. This article focuses on fuel injection in reciprocating piston and Wankel rotary engines. All comp ...

s spray gasoline in engines. *Leadership Computing: Argonne maintains one of the fastest computers for open science and has developed system software for these massive machines. Argonne works to drive the evolution of leadership computing from

petascale Petascale computing refers to computing systems capable of calculating at least 1015 floating point operations per second (1 petaFLOPS). Petascale computing allowed faster processing of traditional supercomputer applications. The first system ...

exascale Exascale computing refers to computing systems capable of calculating at least "1018 IEEE 754 Double Precision (64-bit) operations (multiplications and/or additions) per second ( exa FLOPS)"; it is a measure of supercomputer performance. Exasca ...

, develop new codes and computing environments, and expand computational efforts to help solve scientific challenges. For example, in October 2009, the laboratory announced that it would be embarking on a joint project to explore

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

for scientific purposes. In the 1970s Argonne translated the ''

Numerische Mathematik ''Numerische Mathematik'' is a peer-reviewed mathematics journal on numerical analysis. It was established in 1959 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media. The journal is indexed by ''Mathematical Reviews'' and Zentralblatt MATH. Its 20 ...

'' numerical linear algebra programs from

ALGOL ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

to Fortran and this library was expanded into LINPACK and

EISPACK EISPACK is a software library for numerical computation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices, written in FORTRAN. It contains subroutines for calculating the eigenvalues of nine classes of matrices: complex general, complex Hermitian, ...

, by

Cleve Moler Cleve Barry Moler is an American mathematician and computer programmer specializing in numerical analysis. In the mid to late 1970s, he was one of the authors of LINPACK and EISPACK, Fortran libraries for numerical computing. He invented MATL ...

, et al. *Materials for Energy: Argonne scientists work to predict, understand, and control where and how to place individual atoms and molecules to achieve desired material properties. Among other innovations, Argonne scientists helped develop an ice slurry to cool the organs of heart attack victims, described what makes diamonds slippery at the

nanoscale The nanoscopic scale (or nanoscale) usually refers to structures with a length scale applicable to nanotechnology, usually cited as 1–100 nanometers (nm). A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. The nanoscopic scale is (roughly speaking) a lo ...

level, and discovered a superinsulating material that resists the flow of electric current more completely than any other previous material. *Electrical Energy Storage: Argonne develops batteries for

electric transportation technology An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes ch ...

and

grid Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to: Common usage * Cattle grid or stock grid, a type of obstacle is used to prevent livestock from crossing the road * Grid reference, used to define a location on a map Arts, entertainment, and media * News g ...

storage for intermittent

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...

sources like

wind Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...

or solar, as well as the manufacturing processes needed for these materials-intensive systems. The laboratory has been working on advanced battery materials research and development for over 50 years. In the past 10 years, the laboratory has focused on

lithium-ion batteries A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also se ...

, and in September 2009, it announced an initiative to explore and improve their capabilities. Argonne also maintains an independent battery-testing facility, which tests sample batteries from both government and private industry to see how well they perform over time and under heat and cold stresses. *Alternative Energy and Efficiency: Argonne develops both

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...

and biological

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...

s tailored for current engines as well as improved

combustion Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combusti ...

schemes for future engine technologies. The laboratory has also recommended best practices for conserving fuel; for example, a study that recommended installing auxiliary cab heaters for trucks in lieu of idling the engine. Meanwhile, the

solar energy Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an essenti ...

research program focuses on solar-fuel and solar-electric devices and systems that are scalable and economically competitive with fossil energy sources. Argonne scientists also explore best practices for a

smart grid A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including: *Advanced metering infrastructure (of which smart meters are a generic name for any utility side device even if it is more capable e.g. a f ...

, both by modeling power flow between utilities and homes and by researching the technology for interfaces. *Nuclear Energy: Argonne generates advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies that enable the safe, sustainable generation of

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

. Argonne scientists develop and validate computational models and reactor simulations of future generation

nuclear reactors A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...

. Another project studies how to reprocess

spent nuclear fuel Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor an ...

, so that waste is reduced up to 90%. *Biological and Environmental Systems: Understanding the local effect of climate change requires integration of the interactions between the environment and human activities. Argonne scientists study these relationships from molecule to organism to ecosystem. Programs include

bioremediation Bioremediation broadly refers to any process wherein a biological system (typically bacteria, microalgae, fungi, and plants), living or dead, is employed for removing environmental pollutants from air, water, soil, flue gasses, industrial effluent ...

using

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s to pull

pollutant A pollutant or novel entity is a substance or energy introduced into the environment that has undesired effects, or adversely affects the usefulness of a resource. These can be both naturally forming (i.e. minerals or extracted compounds like oi ...

s out of

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidate ...

; biochips to detect cancers earlier; a project to target

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

ous cells using

nanoparticle A nanoparticle or ultrafine particle is usually defined as a particle of matter that is between 1 and 100 nanometres (nm) in diameter. The term is sometimes used for larger particles, up to 500 nm, or fibers and tubes that are less than 1 ...

s; soil

metagenomics Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microb ...

; and a major

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

research project, ARM. *National Security: Argonne develops security technologies that will prevent and mitigate events with potential for mass disruption or destruction. These include sensors that can detect chemical, biological, nuclear and explosive materials; portable

Terahertz radiation Terahertz radiation – also known as submillimeter radiation, terahertz waves, tremendously high frequency (THF), T-rays, T-waves, T-light, T-lux or THz – consists of electromagnetic waves within the ITU-designated band of freq ...

("T-ray") machines that detect dangerous materials more easily than X-rays at airports; and tracking and modeling the possible paths of chemicals released into a subway.

User facilities

Argonne builds and maintains scientific facilities that would be too expensive for a single company or university to construct and operate. These facilities are used by scientists from Argonne, private industry, academia, other national laboratories and international scientific organizations. *

(APS): a national synchrotron X-ray research facility which produces the brightest

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

beams in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term We ...

. *

Center for Nanoscale Materials The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of five Nanoscale Science Research Centers the United States Department of Energy sponsors. The Center is at Argonne National Laboratory location in Lemont, Illinois. The Center for Nanoscale Materials at ...

(CNM): a user facility located on the APS which provides infrastructure and instruments to study

nanotechnology Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...

and

nanomaterials * Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science-based approach to nan ...

. The CNM is one of five U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Nanoscale Science Research Centers. * Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS): ATLAS is the world's first superconducting

particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...

for heavy ions at energies in the vicinity of the

Coulomb barrier The Coulomb barrier, named after Coulomb's law, which is in turn named after physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, is the energy barrier due to electrostatic interaction that two nuclei need to overcome so they can get close enough to undergo a ...

. This is the energy domain suited to study the properties of the nucleus, the core of matter and the fuel of stars.
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
(ALCF): a DOE Office of Science User Facility that provides supercomputing resources to the research community to enable breakthroughs in science and engineering.

Centers

*The Advanced Materials for Energy-Water Systems (AMEWS) Center is an Energy Frontier Research Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Led by Argonne National Laboratory and including the

and

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

as partners, AMEWS works to solve the challenges that exist at the interface of water and the materials that make up the systems that handle, process and treat water. * Electron Microscopy Center (EMC): one of three DOE-supported scientific user facilities for electron beam microcharacterization. The EMC conducts in situ studies of transformations and defect processes, ion beam modification and irradiation effects, superconductors, ferroelectrics and interfaces. Its intermediate voltage electron microscope, which is coupled with an accelerator, represents the only such system in the United States. *Biology Center (SBC): The SBC is a user facility located off the Advanced Photon Source X-ray facility, which specializes in macromolecular crystallography. Users have access to an insertion-device, a bending-magnet, and a biochemistry laboratory. SBC beamlines are often used to map out the crystal structures of

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

s; in the past, users have imaged proteins from

anthrax Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium ''Bacillus anthracis''. It can occur in four forms: skin, lungs, intestinal, and injection. Symptom onset occurs between one day and more than two months after the infection is contracted. The sk ...

meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Other symptoms include confusion or ...

-causing bacteria,

salmonella ''Salmonella'' is a genus of rod-shaped (bacillus) Gram-negative bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. The two species of ''Salmonella'' are ''Salmonella enterica'' and ''Salmonella bongori''. ''S. enterica'' is the type species and is fur ...

, and other

pathogenic bacteria Pathogenic bacteria are bacteria that can cause disease. This article focuses on the bacteria that are pathogenic to humans. Most species of bacteria are harmless and are often Probiotic, beneficial but others can cause infectious diseases. The n ...

. *The Network Enabled Optimization System (NEOS) Server is the first network-enabled problem-solving environment for a wide class of applications in business, science, and engineering. Included are state-of-the-art solvers in integer programming, nonlinear optimization,

linear programming Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements are represented by linear function#As a polynomial function, li ...

, stochastic programming, and complementarity problems. Most NEOS solvers accept input in the AMPL modeling language. *The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) is a consortium of several national laboratories, academic institutions, and industrial partners based at Argonne National Laboratory. The mission of JCESR is to design and build transformative materials enabling next-generation batteries that satisfy all the performance metrics for a given application. *The Midwest Integrated Center for Computational Materials (MICCoM) is headquartered at the laboratory. MICCoM develops and disseminates interoperable

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

, data, and validation procedures to simulate and predict properties of functional materials for

energy conversion Energy transformation, also known as energy conversion, is the process of changing energy from one form to another. In physics, energy is a quantity that provides the capacity to perform work or moving, (e.g. Lifting an object) or provides heat. ...

processes. *The ReCell Center is a national collaboration of industry, academia and national laboratories, led by Argonne National Laboratory, working to advance recycling technologies along the entire battery life cycle. The center aims to grow a sustainable advanced

battery recycling Battery recycling is a recycling activity that aims to reduce the number of batteries being disposed as municipal solid waste. Batteries contain a number of heavy metals and toxic chemicals and disposing of them by the same process as regular ...

industry by developing economic and environmentally sound recycling processes that can be adopted by industry for

lithium-ion A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also sees ...

and future battery chemistries.

Educational and community outreach

Argonne welcomes all members of the public age 16 or older to take guided tours of the scientific and engineering facilities and grounds. For children under 16, Argonne offers hands-on learning activities suitable for K–12 field trips and scout outings. The laboratory also hosts educational science and engineering outreach for schools in the surrounding area. Argonne scientists and engineers take part in the training of nearly 1,000 college graduate students and post-doctoral researchers every year as part of their research and development activities.

In media

Significant portions of the 1996 chase film ''

Chain Reaction A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events. Chain reactions are one way that syst ...

'' were shot in the

ring room and the former Continuous Wave Deuterium Demonstrator laboratory.

Notable staff

Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov (russian: Алексе́й Алексе́евич Абрико́сов; June 25, 1928 – March 29, 2017) was a Soviet, Russian and AmericanAlexei A. AbrikosovAutobiography Nobelprize.org, the official website of the ...

* Khalil Amine *

Margaret K. Butler Margaret Kampschaefer Butler (March 27, 1924 – March 8, 2013) was a mathematician who participated in creating and updating computer software. During the early 1950s, Butler contributed to the development of History of computing hardware, early ...

* Paul Fenter *

Stuart Freedman Stuart Jay Freedman (January 13, 1944 – November 10, 2012) was an American physicist, known for his work on a Bell test experiment with John Clauser at the University of California, Berkeley as well as for his contributions to nuclear and part ...

* Ian Foster *

Wallace Givens James Wallace Givens, Jr. (December 14, 1910 – March 5, 1993) was a mathematician and a pioneer in computer science. He is the eponym of the well-known Givens rotations. Born the son of two teachers in Alberene, Virginia (a small town near Cha ...

* Raymond Goertz *

Maury C. Goodman Maury C. Goodman is an American experimental particle physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory. He earned his undergraduate degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1972) and his PhD (1979) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-C ...

* * Caroline Herzenberg * Paul Kearns *

Maria Goeppert Mayer Maria Goeppert Mayer (; June 28, 1906 – February 20, 1972) was a German-born American theoretical physicist, and Nobel laureate in Physics for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus. She was the second woman to win a Nobel Pr ...

William McCune William Walker McCune (December 17, 1953 – May 2, 2011) was an American computer scientist and logician working in the fields of automated reasoning, algebra, logic, and formal methods. He was best known for the development of the Otter, Prover ...

* Carlo Montemagno *

José Enrique Moyal José Enrique Moyal ( he, יוסף הנרי מויאל‎; 1 October 1910 – 22 May 1998) was an Australian mathematician and mathematical physicist who contributed to aeronautical engineering, electrical engineering and statistics, among ot ...

* Gilbert Jerome Perlow *

Aneesur Rahman Aneesur Rahman (24 August 1927 – 6 June 1987) pioneered the application of computational methods to physical systems. His 1964 paper on liquid argon studied a system of 864 argon atoms on a CDC 3600 computer, using a Lennard-Jones potential ...

* Luise Meyer-Schützmeister * Dorothy Martin Simon *

Lynda Soderholm Lynda Soderholm is a physical chemist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory with a specialty in f-block elements. She is a senior scientist and the lead of the Actinide, Geochemistry & Separation Sciences Theme wit ...

* Marius Stan * Rick Stevens * Valerie Taylor * Marion C. Thurnauer *

Kameshwar C. Wali Kameshwar C. Wali (October 15, 1927 – January 14, 2022) was an Indian-born American theoretical physicist who was the Distinguished Research Professor of Physics Emeritus at Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences. He was a specia ...

Larry Wos Lawrence T. Wos (1930–2020) was an American mathematician, a researcher in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory. Biography Wos studied at the University of Chicago, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1950 ...

Cosmas Zachos Cosmas K. Zachos ( el, Κοσμάς Ζάχος; born 1951) is a theoretical physicist. He was educated in physics (undergraduate A.B. 1974) at Princeton University, and did graduate work in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Techno ...

Daniel Zajfman Daniel Zajfman (Hebrew: דניאל זייפמן - born June 7, 1959) is an Israeli physicist whose main research interests are centered on the physics of simple molecular ions. On December 1, 2006 he was elected as the tenth president of the Weiz ...

* Nestor J. Zaluzec

Notes

References

* ''Argonne National Laboratory, 1946–96''. Jack M. Holl, Richard G. Hewlett, Ruth R. Harris.

University of Illinois Press The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic project ...

, 1997. . * ''Nuclear physics: an introduction''. S.B. Patel. New Age International Ltd., 1991. . * ''Summary of Nuclear Chemistry Work at Argonne'', Martin H. Studier, Argonne National Laboratory Report, Declassified June 13, 1949.

External links

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for Argonne National Laboratory presentations
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in or near the "shrink-wrap" phase
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