SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a federally funded research and development center in Menlo Park, California, United States. Founded in 1962, the laboratory is now sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by Stanford University. It is the site of the Stanford Linear Accelerator, a 3.2 km linear accelerator constructed in 1966 that could accelerate electrons to energies of 20 GeV, and later up to 50 GeV. Today SLAC research centers on a broad program in atomic and solid-state physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine using X-rays from synchrotron radiation and a free-electron laser as well as experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle physics, accelerator physics, astroparticle physics, and cosmology.