Brookhaven National Laboratory: Historic Site

The Cosmotron

The first accelerator in the world to send particles to energies in the billion-electron-volt, or GeV, region, the Cosmotron reached its full design energy of 3.3 GeV in 1953. The machine was in use until 1968.

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron

An aerial view of the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) in 1968. From 1960 to 1968, the AGS was the highest-energy proton accelerator in the world. It is now used as an injector for Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor

The Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR) was the first peacetime reactor constructed in the United States. At the BGRR, researchers developed the most widely used radioisotope for diagnosing diseased organs — technetium-99m.

National Synchrotron Light Source

As the first facility dedicated to producing synchrotron radiation, the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) became a valuable tool for research in fields ranging from biology and chemistry to condensed matter physics and materials science.

Positron Emission Tomography

Using positron emission tomography, the development of which was pioneered at BNL, Brookhaven scientists are the first to report that people addicted to cocaine, alcohol, and heroin show reduced activity in their brain's dopamine system.

Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is really two accelerators in one - made of crisscrossing rings of superconducting magnets, enclosed in a tunnel 2.4 miles in circumference. In the two rings, beams of heavy ions are accelerated to nearly the speed of light in opposite directions, held in their orbits by powerful magnetic fields before they collide.