LBNL Engineering Division

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LBNL Engineering Division

Berkeley Lab's Engineering Division creates innovative tools, technologies and solutions to further scientific research.

05/26/2026

Spec-S5 will map 200 million stars, scaling DESI from 5,000 to 25,000 fiber positioners to answer key questions about the universe surrounding dark matter and cosmic evolution. This has scientists thinking big, but the small details of such an upgrade make all the difference. Zooming in on one of the smallest aspects of Spec-S5, mechanical engineer Nick Wenner explains Iris, a tiny robot with massive potential.

-S5

05/19/2026

Technicians and engineers have achieved a major milestone, completing a 2-year project to wind the closed-loop coil for the MARS-D magnet. This magnet will help power the fourth-generation electron cyclotron resonance ion source (ECRIS) for the 88-Inch Cyclotron.

This project involved:
24 wire layers
6,000 meters of wire
27,648 bending corners

Find out how this incredibly challenging and technically difficult work was accomplished.
Read more: https://engineering.lbl.gov/2026/05/14/made-in-berkeley-lab-winding-a-novel-closed-loop-coil-magnet-structure/

05/11/2026

More than 20 years ago, Berkeley Lab built the Pixel Support Tube for the ATLAS experiment at CERN. Today, the Engineering Division is finishing work on the Pixel Support Tube for the ATLAS HL-LHC Upgrade Project–with much of the same team!

“One value that a lot of national labs have, and Berkeley Lab in particular, is that because we have an Engineering Division, we have continuous staff for decades,” says Eric Anderssen, project engineer for the ATLAS inner tracker upgrade. “You often have a lot of churn through universities, but having a consistent staff at a national lab, both the scientists and the engineers, is really something that is invaluable.”

This has allowed Berkeley Lab to pool 20 years of collective experience and teamwork into building the cutting-edge infrastructure and instruments that help make the next generation of ATLAS possible.

First picture, taken in April 2026, from top left: Jon Wirth, Tom Johnson, mechanical engineering associate; Todd Claybaugh, mechanical engineer, Eric Anderssen; project engineer for the ATLAS Inner Tracker upgrade; and Neal Hartman, project engineer for ATLAS Inner Pixel Detector.

Second picture, taken in April 2005, from top left: Jon Wirth, Tom Johnson, Mario Cepeda, Alexis Smith, Eric Anderssen, and Neal Hartman.

The ATLAS experiment is one of the largest and most powerful particle detectors in the world. It was instrumental in the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.

Photos: Thor Swift, Berkeley Lab; Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab

04/15/2026

Take a tour through the Advanced Light Source tunnel—a place that is rarely exposed to view. The tunnel is where electrons travel at the speed of light during normal ALS operations. Here, it is shown open for maintenance activities and the installation of the new Accumulator Ring! The Engineering Division’s Kyle McCombs provides a look into this major ALS upgrade.

04/01/2026

Our electronics engineers are designing microchips for extreme environments. Learn about the prototype microchips we’re developing that will function immersed in vat of liquid argon at temperatures of around -300F.

See how the Engineering Division supports scientific discovery, designing and building instruments that help push the frontiers of knowledge.

Read about the microchip: https://engineering.lbl.gov/2026/03/26/super-cold-and-super-tiny-the-electronics-behind-the-legend-1000-physics-detector/

03/25/2026

Engineering Division Machinist Mike Gronley inspects the thickness of a prototype fiber-positioning robot, which he fabricated on a wire EDM machine in the Lab’s machine shop. The piece required very tight tolerances, as well as thin features. The thin sections had to be between 0.175 mm and 0.225 mm—that’s about the thickness of two sheets of paper stacked together, plus or minus a couple of pieces of dust!

“The machine shop is the place to bring these kinds of projects,” Gronley says. “For instance, my background of nearly 20 years making medical devices makes me comfortable taking on tricky little parts like this. Between all of the machinists here, we have over 100 years of experience in vastly different industries. This allows us to tackle just about any part, process, and/or material. I take a lot of pride in my work on these projects, where my attention to detail and understanding of the parts' performance requirements can mean the difference between success and failure of the target experiment.”

These prototype fiber-positioning robots are being made for Spec-S5, a next-generation instrument that will map the universe using spectroscopy, continuing the work of the current DESI Survey.

Photo: Nick Wenner, Berkeley Lab

03/18/2026

Work in the Engineering Division’s mechanical shops can be incredibly varied, from building ultra-advanced scientific instrumentation one day to partnering with staff across the Lab to solve a technical issue the next. Recently, the team reverse-engineered end bells for a server room chiller—helping keep the Lab's operations running smoothly.

Read the full story: https://engineering.lbl.gov/2026/03/13/made-in-berkeley-lab-reverse-engineering-discontinued-parts/

03/10/2026

Watch the installation of the new CNC machine in the Engineering Division shops!

This major upgrade required constructing a specialized foundation, craning large components into place, and performing precise calibration to ensure optimal performance.

With this new addition, our shop capabilities expand to include:
• Precision manufacturing
• Large-format fabrication
• Complex component production

We’re excited to see the innovation and projects this machine will help bring to life. You can view the extended video here: https://youtu.be/jytt-ZKr-Dc?si=A8dIch9LARuUA_nW

03/05/2026

Berkeley Lab is enabling the next generation of microelectronics—and the Engineering Division is helping to make it possible. Learn about Engineering’s own Seno Rekawa, Chief Engineer and Deputy Director at the Center for X-Ray Optics (CXRO). Seno’s work focuses on building one-of-a-kind instrumentation for areas including microelectronic research.

Read more: https://elements.lbl.gov/news/discovery-to-delivery-3q4-with-senajith-seno-rekawa/

02/27/2026

Take a look at our new large-format computer numerical control horizontal boring mill! The machine was delivered to the Lab over a five-day period in early December 2025. It arrived in several pieces, some weighing up to 30,000 pounds, and the fully assembled machine weighs about 80,000 lbs. The new machine gives a big boost to the capabilities in the Engineering Division.

Read more about this exciting new addition to our engineering shops: https://engineering.lbl.gov/2026/02/23/berkeley-labs-engineering-division-unveils-its-new-computer-numerical-control-machine/

Photo credit: Thor Swift, Berkeley Lab

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