As many of us look to the skies with wonder tomorrow to experience the solar eclipse, we here at the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory feel grateful – we daily look with eyes of wonder at what the rays of the sun and other forms of ionizing radiation can do!
The NDRL has a long history, dating back to the Manhattan Project, when a high-energy electron accelerator owned by the Physics Department at Notre Dame was commissioned as a radiation source mainly to investigate radiation hardness of materials. The research from this period provided a solid foundation for the beginnings of a permanent radiation chemistry program at the University of Notre Dame, and the NDRL was recognized as an Institute of the University in September of 1966.
Our mission expanded in the 1970s to include the complementary discipline of quantitative photochemistry; in the 1980s the effects in heterogeneous systems, prefacing the emergence of quantitative nanoscience investigations and our drive to understand and improve solar energy conversion; and in the 1990s ultrafast phenomena with laser-driven experiments in the femtosecond time domain. The new century has seen the introduction of novel irradiation sources, atmospheric pressure plasma jets, and state-of-the-art interrogation schemes.
The Laboratory attracts faculty and researchers across disciplines including chemistry and biochemistry, physics, and chemical and biomolecular engineering. Emphasizing our significance on the world stage, postdoctoral researchers, visiting graduate students, and visiting scientists come from all continents to access our unique array of instrumentation. This, coupled with extensive in-house experimental and theoretical expertise, is what makes the NDRL a world-renowned center for both radiation chemistry and solar photochemistry. We are pleased to welcome the learning community of ThinkND into the NDRL family.
