Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory, often shortened to Los Alamos or LANL, is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy, located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was established in 1943 as Project Y, a secret site for designing and assembling nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project, and it is best known for its central role in developing the first atomic bomb. During the Cold War its physicists developed the first thermonuclear weapons, and the laboratory was involved in the origins of supercomputers built to further warhead development. Today it conducts multidisciplinary research in national security, space exploration, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology and supercomputing. The laboratory is owned by the federal government and privately managed and operated by Triad National Security, LLC.