A premier low-energy neutrino lab, ORNL leverages decades of experience building and operating massive scientific experiments in its management of LEGEND-1000.
ORNL leads the project in the development of ultra-pure, low-background materials and detector production. ORNL also leads the management of the DOE project and the consolidated project office that oversees the critical interfaces between the various subsystems and institutions in the experiment.
Uniquely Positioned to Lead the Search for a Ghostly Particle
ORNL provides an unmatched blend of expertise in nuclear physics, detector development, ultra-pure materials, low-background measurement, and large-project coordination.
A National Landmark for Neutrino Science
ORNL built a world-leading neutrino program in only a few decades, leveraging the abundant neutrinos provided by the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), which makes the brightest accelerator-produced neutrino pulses in the world.
The People Behind the Science
ORNL’s position of leadership is enabled by the dedication of scientists and engineers who have spent decades building the tools, methods, and partnerships needed to answer the hardest questions about the universe.
ORNL is the Home of Big Science
ORNL is the largest DOE science and energy laboratory, with more than 7,000 employees representing over 70 countries and 5,000 guest researchers hosted annually. Lab researchers published more than 2,800 articles in scientific journals in 2025, have won more than 259 R&D 100 awards—more than any other national laboratory—and were granted more than 1,000 patents over the past 15 years. The lab’s researchers, technologists, and professionals have the experience and determination needed to sustain LEGEND’s massive scientific effort.
Moreover, ORNL is an international leader in materials and detectors for extreme environments, and DOE’s High Energy Physics program has labeled ORNL “a national landmark for neutrino science.” The inverted point contact detectors for LEGEND were invented at ORNL and are now used all over the world.
Studying neutrinos here, ORNL physicists have:
- Observed the first-ever (and second and third) measurement of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS), unambiguously established at SNS’s Neutrino Alley.
- Studied short-range neutrino oscillations through PROSPECT, the only reactor-based neutrino experiment in the country, to test for the existence of sterile neutrinos, hypothetical particles that do not interact via the weak force.
This neutrino expertise enables ORNL to assume critical leadership roles in numerous international science collaborations, including precursor experiments to LEGEND, positioning the lab to help drive the next stage of discovery.
ORNL’s current crop of massive science facilities are only the latest examples of the lab’s unmatched ability to build, operate and lead Big Science efforts.
- ORNL has been a world leader in supercomputing for decades, including the creation of four computers that have been ranked as the fastest in the world since 2005, the latest being Frontier, the world’s first exascale computer. ORNL is currently building the next generation of computers, named Discovery and Lux, which will harness the power of AI to supercomputing, opening up new fields of research.
- ORNL operates the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), a world-leading Office of Science user facility driving the creation and application of new materials that are manipulated at atomic scales to unleash new behaviors, including quantum effects like entanglement and superconductivity.
- ORNL’s SNS and HFIR are two of the world’s most powerful sources of neutrons for research. Both facilities use neutrons for fundamental research through techniques like neutron scattering, leading to new materials and fundamental scientific insight. They also serve as powerful sources of abundant neutrinos.
