Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

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Aerial view of Rutherford Appleton Lab. The prominent silver ring is the Diamond Light Source.

The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) at the Chilton/Harwell Science Campus is a scientific research laboratory near Didcot in Oxfordshire, England. It has a staff of approximately 1,200 people who support the work of over 10,000 scientists and engineers, chiefly from the university research community.

RAL is run by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It is named after the physicists Ernest Rutherford and Edward Appleton.

The Rutherford High Energy Laboratory was set up on the former RAF Harwell airfield between Chilton and Harwell in 1957, and merged with the Atlas Computer Laboratory and Appleton Laboratory in 1975 and 1979 respectively, to form the current laboratory.

The Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) was set up to run RAL and Daresbury Laboratory in 1996. In 2007, the CCLRC became part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

RAL hosts ISIS, the brightest spallation neutron source in the world, which uses neutron scattering to study the structure and behaviour of materials, providing research capabilities for around 1600 scientists from a range of disciplines, and has been operating since 1985.

RAL was chosen as the site for the synchrotron light source Diamond, which officially opened in January 2007.

The Central Laser Facility, which houses the Vulcan and Astra lasers, is also located in RAL.

RAL also hosts a number of other resources and services in particle physics, microelectronics, atmospheric sciences, space science, spectroscopy and renewable energy research.