Yale Wright Laboratory (Wright Lab) is a facility and research community at Yale University in New Haven, CT. Wright Lab enables researchers to develop, build and use research instrumentation for experiments in nuclear, particle and astrophysics across the globe that investigate the invisible universe.
WNSL housed the first "Emperor" tandem Van de Graaff heavy ion accelerator[1] and was founded by D. Allan Bromley, the "father of heavy-ion physics," in 1961[2] (see History, below, for more information).
Wright Lab is named for Arthur Williams Wright, who was awarded one of the first three Ph.D.s in science in the Americas (all of which were awarded by Yale University in 1861).
[3] The building complex joins two buildings that were constructed and renovated at different times, for different purposes, yet always related to Yale physics research.
The history of Wright Lab begins with the creation of accelerator physics in the 1920s, and continues with the creation of the Arthur W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory (WNSL) to operate the Yale MP-1 "Emperor" tandem Van de Graaff heavy ion accelerator from 1966 until 2011, and continues further with its transformation into the new Wright Lab, which was dedicated in 2017, to enable Wright Lab's research program in nuclear, particle and astrophysics.