@lbnlengineering.lbl.gov
We create innovative tools, technologies and solutions to further scientific research, contributing to the Department of Energy's mission to study new materials, address energy and environmental challenges, and advance fundamental science.
Watch the installation of our new #CNC machine. The process involved building a special foundation, craning large parts into place, and calibration. Full video here: bit.ly/3N9eVJY
@lbnlengineering.bsky.social
@berkeleylab.lbl.gov is enabling the next generation of microelectronics—and the Engineering Division is helping make it possible. Learn about Engineering’s own Seno Rekawa, Chief Engineer and Deputy Director at the Center for X-Ray Optics. More: bit.ly/4lhwRie
@lbnlengineering.bsky.social Take a look at our new large-format computer numerical control horizontal boring mill! It was delivered over a five-day period in early December 2025. The new machine gives a big boost to the capabilities in the Engineering Division’s shops. More: bit.ly/4aGQk8c
Take a peek at a mandrel for a canted-cosine-theta (CCT) superconducting magnet coil, machined by the Engineering Division. It will form the inner layer of a four-layer, proof-of-concept magnet. Read more: bit.ly/463L1x1
#Science #Research #Innovation #Engineering #Magnet #MadeinBerkeleyLab
A piece of the Engineering Division's new large-format CNC horizontal boring mill arrives at the Engineering Division's machine shops on the Berkeley Lab camps. Photo credit: Thor Swift, Berkeley Lab
Big news arrives in big packages in the Engineering Division! We’re putting the finishing touches on a new CNC horizontal boring mill, bringing powerful new capabilities to our shops—including multi-axis contour milling, precision boring, drilling, and tapping. #Engineering #Milling #PrecisionBoring
Berkeley Lab’s scientific and technical staff posing within and on top of the magnet for the 60-inch cyclotron. The photo was taken in September 1939, the same year Ernest O. Lawrence won a Nobel Prize for the invention of this instrument. Featured in the photo are many of the scientific luminaries of the time, including Lawrence himself, Luis Alvarez, and Robert Oppenheimer.
The Engineering Division’s ALS Mechanical Technology Group is posing in the Advanced Light Source (ALS) in an homage to the iconic 60-inch cyclotron photo. The photo was taken in the summer of 2025 to mark the in-tunnel mechanical installation of the Accumulator Ring (AR) and Booster-to-Accumulator (BTA), an important milestone in the Advanced Light Source Upgrade project at Berkeley Lab.
Team science then and now. Scientific and technical staff posing within and on top of the magnet for the 60-inch cyclotron in September 1939 vs the Engineering Division’s ALS Mechanical Technology Group posing in the ALS in 2025.
Neat rows of orange and blue cables housed with in an electronics chassis.
Made in Berkeley Lab: a custom-built electronics chassis for a programmable logic controller, designed to protect people and equipment. “I am especially proud of achieving a clean, structured cable layout despite the tight spacing,” says Vinnie Aromin, electronics technologist who made the chassis.
The Engineering Division is part of a multi-lab effort to build #superconducting magnets for the Large Hadron Collider Upgrade project at #CERN.
Our #Engineering Small Project Support team recently designed a custom small-batch chemical reactor, helping bridge a critical gap in testing new #chemistry processes before upscaling them to larger experiments. Read more: bit.ly/4pVPBVG
Made in Berkeley Lab: the plasma chamber at the heart of heavy ion accelerators. This piece of equipment includes about 30 individual components, which were fabricated and assembled over 350 hours of machining, welding, leak detection, & ultra-high-vacuum cleaning. More: bit.ly/4rRkdtc
Step into the heart of the @als.lbl.gov and see what happens during a major shutdown. Watch the full story unfold: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPv_...
Berkeley Lab Electronics Engineer Thorsten Stezelberger places an antenna in a hole in the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
Spencer Klein (left) and Martha Story (right) dig antenna holes at their camp on the Ross Ice Shelf.
Testing equipment on the ice.
Engineering can take you to unexpected places. In 2009, Berkeley Lab Engineering Division Electronics Engineer Thorsten Stezelberger and Nuclear Science Division Senior Scientist Spencer Klein camped on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica while testing hardware in the field. Read more: bit.ly/3XNXj7U
In this image, Physics Division staff scientist Aritoki Suzuki (right) and postdoctoral researcher Kaja Rotermund install the central bearing assembly for the shaft that rotates LuSEE-Night’s carousel. This component was later replaced by a shaft made of a glass-reinforced PEI polymer to further reduce thermal conductivity between the exterior lunar environment and the instruments protected by the thermal casing.
@lbnlengineering.bsky.social
LuSEE-Night will test the effectiveness of radio antennas on the far side of the Moon and gather data about the Dark Ages of the Universe. A lot of engineering has gone into this instrument, which must operate in an intense lunar environment. More: bit.ly/46AWkNH
🏅 Former Berkeley Lab senior scientist John Clarke has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. His research on quantum tunneling in electric circuits paved the way for today’s quantum computers and sensors. 🧠 This brings LBNL’s Nobel count to 17!
@nobelprize.bsky.social
@uofcalifornia.bsky.social
CERN is the beating heart of particle physics. It is the center of the world for that,” remarks Berkeley Lab Mechanical Engineer Todd Claybaugh. Claybaugh has made several trips to CERN to support the upgrade of ATLAS’s Inner Tracker. He snapped this pic at CERN in Dec 2024.
This image shows a detailed view of the pin lock on the underside of the antenna assembly's carousel for LuSEE-Night. The carousel was designed by Berkeley Lab engineer Joe Silber. During launch and transit, the pin lock stabilizes the platter and prevents it from rotating. After landing, the pin is retracted, freeing the carousel to rotate.
Components engineered @berkeleylab.lbl.gov will support LuSEE-Night, which will test the effectiveness of radio antennas on the far side of the moon and gather data about the Dark Ages of the Universe. This image shows a detailed view of parts designed at the Lab. Read more: bit.ly/46AWkNH
Two men wearing hardhats stand on either end of large white plinth, which is supported by a crane. Photo: Rick Kraft, Berkeley Lab
A view from the Engineering Division's mechanical fabrication facilities. Machinists prepare to move a plinth for the Advanced Light Source Upgrade (ALS-U) onto a large-format horizontal boring mill for additional machining. #Engineering
#LabLife #BoringMill #Machining
The final precision pin is inserted into the outer cylinder at CERN. Photo credit: Eric Anderssen, Berkeley Lab
At CERN, the final precision pin is inserted into the outer cylinder, which is part of the support structure for the ATLAS Inner Tracker upgrade. Berkeley Lab engineers built this carbon-fiber composite cylinder and are part of the team making this upgrade happen.
Learn more: bit.ly/3JmB1qd
A completed undulator for SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source high-energy upgrade.
The magnetic components that make up an undulator.
Meet the undulators that will revolutionize scientific research!
Berkeley Lab #engineers have created nine new #undulators and retrofitted 21 existing undulators for SLAC's LCLS-II-HE upgrade. The first photo shows a completed undulator; the second photo shows the magnetic undulator components.
The new outer cylinder of the ATLAS inner tracker under construction at Berkeley Lab in 2023. (Credit: Thor Swift, Berkeley Lab)
CERN’s ATLAS detector, the largest detector ever constructed for a particle collider, has been undergoing a multi-year upgrade to overhaul its innermost tracking system. Learn about the role Berkeley Lab engineers are playing in this massive scientific undertaking: bit.ly/3JmB1qd
Our engineers are prototyping next-gen fiber-positioning robots for the planned @desisurvey.bsky.social upgrade. #Engineering #Robotics #DESIsurvey #EngineeringatWork
Happy birthday to Ernest O. Lawrence, founder of @berkeleylab.lbl.gov, born August 8, 1901. He received the Nobel Prize for inventing the cyclotron, an antecedent of the modern-day ALS. He also pioneered the concept of Big Science – an approach we still follow! Watch a short video: bit.ly/3HbKjUW
See our incredible rigging team in action at the @als.lbl.gov! More about roof blocks here: physicalsciences.lbl.gov/2025/07/28/a...
Video: Thor Swift, Berkeley Lab
A roof block is moved by crane at the Advanced Light Source.
The rigging team prepares and moves Roof Blocks 74 and 76 at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) Sector 12 area, as part of the Summer 2025 shutdown work on the ALS Upgrade project, at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
The rigging team prepares and moves Roof Blocks 74 and 76 at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) Sector 12 area, as part of the Summer 2025 shutdown work on the ALS Upgrade project, at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
A delicate dance with 20-ton concrete blocks. Eighteen enormous concrete blocks will be moved at strategic locations around the historic Advanced Light Source building this summer in a carefully executed engineering operation. Find out more: bit.ly/4lKlL4y Photos: Thor Swift, Berkeley Lab
The shell and yoke structure of one of the new superconducting magnets being assembled in Berkeley Lab Engineering Building 77 for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) at CERN.
The shell and yoke structure of one of the new superconducting magnets being assembled @berkeleylab.lbl.gov for the HL-LHC at CERN. Once installed, these will be the first niobium-tin-based magnets ever used in a particle accelerator and will increase the LHC’s luminosity by a factor of ten.
The evolution of purpose-built synchrotron magnet housings, as our engineers work to get the design just right.
The evolution of purpose-built #synchrotron #magnet housings, as our #engineers work to get the design just right. Magnets in a synchrotron act like a high-speed traffic system, steering electrons and keeping them in the right "lanes." Getting the magnets in the right orientation is essential.
An up-close look at several of GRETA’s germanium detectors, each made up of four position-sensitive quadrants, installed for testing at Berkeley Lab.
#GRETA will be the world’s most sensitive gamma-ray #spectrometer when it comes online later this year. Learn about the #engineering that went into this powerful instrument, which will soon be probing the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
Read about GRETA: bit.ly/46yCJhs
Go behind the scenes with our engineering team as they help build the next-generation ATLAS detector for @cern.bsky.social.
Berkeley Lab Engineering Mechanical Fabrication Shops in July 1973.
Berkeley Lab Engineering Mechanical Fabrication Shops top.
Then and now! Our Mechanical Fabrication Shops, shown in July 1973 and today. The shops are an incredible resource for the Lab, and they continue to evolve to meet the demands of cutting-edge engineering and science. Curious to know more? Read about the shops here: bit.ly/3GvktLg
Installation of one of the ABend power supply racks in the Advance Light Source.
One of ABend power supply racks for the @als.lbl.gov upgrade is hoisted into place by the ALS Mechanical Technology Group. Installing these racks in the tight confines of the accelerator pit presents a significant challenge! The team made multiple test runs to ensure successful installation.
