SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is one of 10 Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science laboratories and is operated by Stanford University on behalf of the DOE. Since its opening in 1962, SLAC has been helping create the future. We built the world’s longest particle accelerator, discovered some of the fundamental building blocks of matter and created the first website in North America.

Our top-notch research facilities attract thousands of scientists from all over the world each year. Along with our own staff scientists, they’re working to discover new drugs for healing, new materials for electronics and new ways to produce clean energy and clean up the environment.

SLAC’s revolutionary X-ray laser is revealing intimate details of atoms and chemical reactions and making stop-motion movies of this tiny realm, with the goal of doing the same for living cells.

Our scientists are also exploring the cosmos, from the origin of the universe to the nature of dark energy, and developing the smaller, more efficient particle accelerators of the future.

Four scientists have been awarded Nobel prizes for work done at SLAC, and more than 1,000 scientific papers are published each year based on research at the lab. As our second half-century unfolds, we’re just getting started.