A recently completed project at the Department of Energy’s Jefferson Lab in Newport News will help nuclear physicists look deeper into the nucleus of the atom.

The 12 GeV (gigaelectronvolts) upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) was completed Sept. 27. Construction on the $338 million project started in 2008.

“We originally had a capability of delivering 6 GeV, and this doubled the maximum energy of the electron beam,” says Allison Lung, chief planning officer and director of the 12 GeV upgrade project.

The lab also added a fourth experimental hall on the original campus and upgraded equipment in the three existing halls. “Our electron accelerator is shaped like a racetrack about seven-eights of a mile around,” says Lung. “We had three experimental halls at one end of the original campus, and we added the fourth hall at the opposite end of the racetrack to enable a new area of physics research.”