Neutron Sciences Directorate

Can’t come to the lab for a tour? We’ll bring the lab to you.

Now, anyone can see the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), and other ORNL user facilities through the lab’s virtual tours.

The virtual tours of SNS and HFIR feature 360-degree multi-level views, enabling you to experience the facilities in the same manner as an in-person tour. You will have access to more than 30 high-powered instruments, as well as the construction site for VENUS, the SNS facility’s newest instrument.

Tours are also available for the SNS facility’s linear accelerator and the klystron gallery. The tours allow visitors to walk the actual path particles travel as they’re accelerated to almost the speed of light down more than 300-yards of tunneling and collide with a liquid mercury targets that creates “spalls” of neutrons.

Along the way, you can see interesting research examples, videos, and fun facts about the facilities.

SNS and HFIR are used by scientists around the world to study energy and materials at the atomic scale. Similar to x-rays, neutron scattering is a powerful tool used to peer inside materials to reveal what they’re made of and how to use and improve them.

Insights gained have led to many advances in medicine, transportation, engineering, and computing. Many materials of the future are being studied at SNS and HFIR today.

SNS and HFIR are DOE Office of Science user facilities. ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit https://www.energy.gov/science.

Take the HFIR virtual tour.

Take the SNS virtual tour.