Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory based at Sci-Tech Daresbury campus near Daresbury in Halton,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. The laboratory began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory (DNPL) by the then Prime Minister of United Kingdom,

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (11 March 1916 – 23 May 1995) was a British statesman and Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1964 to 1970 and again from 197 ...

. It was the second national laboratory established by the British National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science, following the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory (now Rutherford Appleton Laboratory). It is operated by the

Science and Technology Facilities Council The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astr ...

, part of UK Research and Innovation. As of 2018, it employs around 300 staff, with Paul Vernon appointed as director in November 2020, taking over from Professor Susan Smith who had been director from 2012.

Description

Daresbury Laboratory carries out research in fields such as accelerator science, bio-medicine, physics, chemistry, materials, engineering and computational science. Its facilities are used by scientists and engineers, from both the university research community and industrial research base. The laboratory is based at Sci-Tech Daresbury.

Facilities and research

* Accelerator science, including the Cockcroft Institute which houses scientists from STFC,

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

, University of Lancaster, and

University of Strathclyde The University of Strathclyde () is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal charter in 1964 as the first techn ...

. Accelerator science facilities include: ** VELA (Versatile Electron Linear Accelerator), an

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

compact

linear accelerator A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear ...

, based around an RF photocathode gun. ** CLARA (Compact Linear Accelerator for Research Applications), an electron linear accelerator to be used for research in

free-electron laser A free-electron laser (FEL) is a fourth generation light source producing extremely brilliant and short pulses of radiation. An FEL functions much as a laser but employs relativistic electrons as a active laser medium, gain medium instead of using ...

s. ** FEBE (Full Energy Beam Exploitation), a beamline of CLARA designed for 2 GeV electron research. * SuperSTEM, a national research facility for advanced electron microscopy. The facility belongs to

EPSRC The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to univers ...

. * The Hartree Centre, a

high performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) is the use of supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into ...

data analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data, which also falls under and directly relates to the umbrella term, data sci ...

and AI research facility. *

Scientific computing Computational science, also known as scientific computing, technical computing or scientific computation (SC), is a division of science, and more specifically the Computer Sciences, which uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and s ...

* Nuclear physics * Detector systems * Superconducting Radio-Frequency Lab (SuRF Lab) * Engineering Technology Centre * Public engagement * The

Virtual Engineering Centre * PsiQuantum

Retired facilities

* NINA (Northern Institute's Nuclear Accelerator), an electron synchrotron; the first accelerator at the site. *

ALICE Alice may refer to: * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Literature * Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll * ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...

(Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments), an electron accelerator previously known as ERLP ( Energy Recovery Linac Prototype). * EMMA (Electron Machine with Many Applications or Electron Model for Many Applications), a linear non-scaling FFAG accelerator. * NSF (Nuclear Structure Facility), a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator housed in the tower. * HPCx, a supercomputer (replaced by the UK national supercomputing service,

HECToR In Greek mythology, Hector (; , ) was a Trojan prince, a hero and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. He is a major character in Homer's ''Iliad'', where he leads the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, killing c ...

, based in Edinburgh). * Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS)

Awards

In 2009 the laboratory was awarded the title of the "Most Outstanding Science Park" at the UK Science Parks Association.

References

External links