A new building was constructed in the mid-1960s at UC Davis around the cyclotron (large building in center of photo), located to the right of UC Davis' former hog barn. (UC Davis University Communications/archival photo)
Adapting to history and funding challenges, the lab celebrates its many applications
Just over 40 years ago, two flat-bed trucks pulled off a country road by a hog barn, carrying two huge and slightly radioactive electromagnets. The magnets were key parts of a particle accelerator called a cyclotron, built at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory by Nobel Prize winner Ernest Lawrence in the 1930s. Now the cyclotron was coming to a new home— the distinctly rural Davis campus.
Once the machine was put together and tested, the first beam was created in 1966, and a dedication ceremony was held that year to celebrate. Today that machine is still spinning protons around and flinging out a beam of energized particles.
"The Crocker lab is still going, and that's very gratifying," said John Jungerman, founding director of the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory and professor emeritus of physics, at a recent event to mark the anniversary.
The Crocker lab has had its rough patches. When most federal funding was cut off in the early 1970s, the lab survived by taking on new, applied research in areas such as air quality. Staffing levels dived in lean times— but recovered with new research initiatives.
On the home page: The Crocker Lab staff, standing on the cyclotron, celebrate the first beam from the cyclotron, April 8, 1966. (Archival photo courtesy of Crocker Nuclear Lab)
A look at the Crocker Nuclear Lab
- History: a legacy from Berkeley
- What is a cyclotron?
- 'Project Clean Air' to the rescue
- Cyclotron applications
- Treating eye tumors
- Patients benefit from medical isotopes
- Crocker aids agricultural produce and food safety
- Radiation-resistant electronics tested
- Verifying historical documents