Argonne Lab: An Exclusive Tour

Red Hot Nano Silicon for Lithium-Ion Batteries: This electron microscope image depicts the emergence of silicon nano strands from an indium droplet during a plasma-assisted physical vapor deposition growth process. The orange spheres are indium droplets. The growing silicon nanostrands lift the indium spheres during the growth process. When growth is completed, the nano silicon/indium assembly is used as negative electrodes in lithium-ion batteries.

Argonne Lab

An Exclusive Tour

BY LARRY ATSEFF

Hinsdale Magazine recently visited Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont to tour four specific research disciplines: supercomputers, energy storage labs, a transportation research facility and the Advanced Photon Source lab, an extremely powerful x-ray facility.

It is the nation’s first national laboratory, established after the first nuclear reactor was created, in 1942 by Enrico Fermi and other scientist, under the bleachers of the original Stagg Field at the University of Chicago as part of the Manhattan Project. Understanding the dangers of testing nuclear technology so close to a major city, the government created Argonne Labs on July 1, 1946. Enveloped by the lush Argonne Forest for which it was named after, today Argonne employs over 3,200 scientists, engineers, and technicians, plus college students, all from 60 different countries, conducting leading edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. This knowledge and the facilities, in turn, are made available annually to over 7,000 researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and government agencies in the US and worldwide, helping to make a better world. ■