Engineering Division

Advanced Light Source (ALS), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA

The Advanced Photo-injector EXperiment (APEX) is dedicated to demonstrating the capability of an electron injector based on a new concept RF gun developed at Berkeley Lab to deliver the beam quality required by next generation free electron laser (FEL) facilities. The APEX gun is a normal-conducting continuous wave (CW) RF gun where electrons are generated by laser-induced photo-emission on high quantum efficiency (QE) cathodes. The electrons are subsequently accelerated up to the nominal energy of 750 keV. The low frequency makes the resonator size large enough to lower the power density on the cavity walls at a level that conventional cooling techniques can be used to run in CW mode, while maintaining the high accelerating fields required for the high brightness performance. In addition, the low frequency allows to use large apertures on the cavity walls without significant field distortion, therefore enabling efficient vacuum pumping and prolonging the lifetime of the sensitive high QE photo cathodes. The gun cavity resonates at 186 MHz, the 7^th sub-harmonic of 1.3 GHz or the 8^th sub-harmonic of 1.5 GHz, the two dominant superconducting linac technologies for next generation FEL facilities.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA

NDCX-II, the second generation Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment, is an unusual special-purpose particle accelerator designed to produce a high-quality, dense ion beam that can be used to inform and guide the design of major components for heavy-ion fusion energy production. The Berkeley Lab Engineering Division designed and fabricated the high voltage injectors and accelerator structures and conducted the electrostatic simulation and analysis for the NDCX-II project.

CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland

ATLAS is a large, 7,000 ton, multi-purpose detector at the Large Hadron Collider that is used to conduct particle physics experiments that seek new discoveries in the Universe using head-on collisions of protons of extraordinarily high energy. Critical of the elements including data acquisition electronics and silicon detector modules were designed and fabricated by Berkeley Lab’s Engineering and Physics Divisions.

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CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland

Physics detectors are developed to understand the evolution and structure of nuclear matter from the smallest quarks and gluons to the elements in the Universe created by stars. The ALICE Detector at CERN was designed to open a new high-energy frontier in the physics of ultra high-density hadronic matter and the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). The Berkeley Lab designed the Electromagnetic Calorimeter and fabricated 18 supermodules weighing 8 tons each.

Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Antartica

IceCube is a neutrino detector/telescope buried over a mile beneath the Antarctic ice. The clear ice, stable conditions, and low background radiation make this location ideal for the telescope to look down and through the earth, opening a new window into the Universe. The IceCube observatory consists of 5,160 basketball-sized light detectors called Digital Optical Modules (DOMs), which were conceived and largely designed at Berkeley Lab.

Transmission Electron Aberration-Corrected Microscope TEAM – Berkeley, CA

Electron microscopes can be used to observe extremely fine details of the inner-structure of materials.Transmission Electron Aberration-Corrected Microscope (TEAM) is a new generation microscope that explores nanometer-scaled structures and chemistry to characterize the dynamics of atoms that form various structures and materials.

Large Hadron Collider – CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland |

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is placed in a tunnel 27 kilometers beneath France and Switzerland, between the Jura Mountains and the Alps. (Images copyright CERN)

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), UK

The  Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is a high-energy physics experiment formed to demonstrate ionization cooling in a short section of a realistic cooling channel using a muon beam. The Berkeley Lab is responsible for designing and procuring the RF, RF cavities, superconducting magnets, conducting the thermal and structural analyses, and designing the Spectrometer Solenoid modules.

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88-Inch Cyclotron, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA

GRETINA (Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking In-beam Nuclear Array) is a gamma-ray detector to study the structure and properties of atomic nuclei. It is built from large crystals of hyper-pure germanium and it uses the concept of gamma-ray energy tracking. GRETINA was constructed at the Berkeley Lab’s 88-inch Cyclotron and completed two yearlong campaigns at MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and ANL’s Argonne Tandem LINAC Accelerator System (ATLAS). It is presently in another experimental campaign at NSCL. GRETINA is the first stage of the full Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking Array (GRETA).

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