Argonne National Laboratory

Argonne National Laboratory, a U.S. center for research in nuclear and high-energy physics, located at Argonne, Illinois, near Chicago. It was founded in 1946 and is operated by the University of Chicago and Argonne Universities Association for the U.S. Department of Energy (originally for the Atomic Energy Commission). The staff of about 5000 conducts research in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and related environmental problems. The first experimental boiling water reactor was constructed here in 1956. Current facilities include an intense pulsed neutron source. Its proton accelerator, called the zero-gradient synchrotron, or ZGS, was shut down in 1970. See Particle Accelerators.