Daresbury Laboratory

Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory based at Sci-Tech Daresbury campus near Daresbury in Halton, Cheshire, 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. 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, part of UK Research and Innovation. As of 2018, it employed around 300 staff. Paul Vernon was appointed as director in November 2020, taking over from Professor Susan Smith who had been director from 2012.

Daresbury Tower, formerly the Nuclear Structure Facility

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.

• Accelerator science, including the Cockcroft Institute which houses scientists from STFC, University of Manchester, University of Liverpool, University of Lancaster, and University of Strathclyde. Accelerator science facilities include:

  • VELA (Versatile Electron Linear Accelerator), an electron compact linear accelerator, 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 lasers.
  • 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 Hartree Centre, a high performance computing, data analytics and AI research facility.

• Scientific computing

• Nuclear physics

• Detector systems

• Superconducting Radio-Frequency Lab (SuRF Lab)

• Engineering Technology Centre

• Public engagement

• The University of Liverpool Virtual Engineering Centre

• PsiQuantum

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

• ALICE (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, based in Edinburgh).

• Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS)

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

• Alec Merrison – British nuclear physicist, Daresbury Laboratory's first director

• Cockcroft Institute – Scientific research institute in Cheshire, England, International centre for accelerator science

• Van de Graaff generator – Electrostatic generator operating on the triboelectric effect, The former Nuclear Structure Facility at Daresbury was based on a Van de Graaff accelerator

• Arthur Dooley – British sculptor. The Laboratory has a piece 'Splitting of the Atom', unveiled in 1971, constructed from magnetic steel and two 37 inch pole tips taken from the cyclotron.

• Daresbury Laboratory at Sci-Tech Daresbury

• The Science and Technology Facilities Council

• Synchrotron Radiation Source

• Accelerator Science and Technology Centre

• 4GLS - the proposed Fourth Generation Light Source