For over thirty years, the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) has been a premier accelerator-based user facility for national security and fundamental science. LANSCE has remained at the forefront of research because of its strength in technological innovation and its capacity to tailor its very intense proton beam and beam delivery modes to changing scientific and programmatic needs. LANSCE provides the scientific community with intense sources of neutrons with the capability of performing experiments supporting civilian and national security research.
Today, five state-of-the-art facilities operate simultaneously, contributing to the nuclear weapons program (including actinide and high explosives science), nuclear medicine, materials science and nanotechnology, biomedical research, electronics testing, fundamental physics, and many other areas. During eight months of the year, while the accelerator is operational, scientists from around the world work at LANSCE to execute an extraordinarily broad program of defense and civilian research.
LANSCE is the major experimental science facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), underpinning the Laboratory as a world-class scientific institution. At the heart of LANSCE is a powerful linear accelerator that accelerates protons to 84% the speed of light. When these protons strike a target of tungsten metal, neutrons are produced. Protons and neutrons are used in a wide range of applications that help the nation maintain its leadership role in many areas of science and technology. Research conducted at LANSCE helps to maintain the nation’s nuclear deterrent, counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction and lays the foundation for many of the products we use in our daily lives by supporting materials sciences and technology.
Protons and neutrons are used in a wide range of applications that help the nation maintain its leadership role in many areas of science and technology. Research conducted at LANSCE helps to maintain the nation's nuclear deterrent and to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction. LANSCE also lays the foundation for many of the products we use in our daily lives by supporting materials science and technology. A unique attribute of LANSCE is that its five major facilities can operate simultaneously.
The core LANSCE facility is one of the nation's most powerful proton linear accelerators or LINAC. The 800-mega-electron-volt (800 MeV) LINAC provides beam current, simultaneously, to five major facilities with unique capabilities: the Proton Radiography facility that supports National Nuclear Security Administration Defense Program (NNSA DP) missions; the Weapons Neutron Research facility (WNR) that supports DP missions; the Lujan Center that supports DP and Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) missions; the Isotope Production Facility (IPF) that supports the DOE Office of Nuclear Physics within the SC; and the Ultracold Neutrons (UCN) facility that supports SC missions.
The LINAC at LANSCE has served the nation since 1972, providing the beam current required by all the experimental areas that support NNSA-DP and other DOE missions. The LINAC's capability to reliably deliver beam current is the key to the LANSCE's ability to do research–and thus the key to meeting NNSA and DOE mission deliverables.
Laboratory Senior Fellow Emeritus, Louis Rosen, was the driving force behind the conception and the
development of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). Louis directed LANSCE from its inception
in 1972 until 1985. Louis continued to work at LANSCE until two days before his death in August of 2009.
He was 91. Known as the Father of LANSCE, Louis is remembered for his tireless efforts, scientific
achievements, humor, and compassion. Louis lives on in the hearts all who had the privilege to know him.
