Fermilab marks major milestone for world-leading DUNE experiment

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Sanford Underground Research Facility held an event today in Lead, S.D., celebrating a significant milestone for the most ambitious neutrino research experiment in the United States, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility. The event commemorated the start of 10 million pounds of steel beams being moved a mile underground to build the structural elements that will form DUNE’s detector elements. “Today represents the start of a pivotal phase for DUNE, the development of the far detector structures in South Dakota,” Fermilab Director Norbert Holtkamp said. “As we advance this historic effort, our focus remains on safety, quality and schedule — in that order — to ensure we successfully deliver on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, our nation and the world.” Holtkamp added, “We at Fermilab are grateful for the support from DOE and the close collaboration of our science partners at SURF, CERN and the many international institutions that are contributing to DUNE.” Dignitaries and officials celebrate a major milestone for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment on May 7. The event marked the start of 10 million pounds of steel beams being lowered underground to form the DUNE detectors. Photo credit: Landin Burke, Fermilab CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, provided personnel, expertise and an in-kind contribution of 10 million pounds of steel for the detectors being assembled underground in South Dakota. This is the first time CERN has invested in infrastructure for an experiment outside of Europe. The steel cryostat materials contributed by CERN for DUNE are scheduled to be moved underground and prepared for installation this summer. This marks an important transition from construction to detector installation and demonstrates the tangible impact of international in-kind contributions to DUNE. “This important milestone for DUNE is a testament to the strong scientific partnership between CERN and the United States,” said CERN Director General Mark Thomson. “CERN is playing a pivotal role in the development of its prototype detectors and providing the two enormous cryostats for the experiment itself, while the U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories likewise are playing a critical role for CERN with state-of-the-art superconducting accelerator magnets for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider.” DUNE will send the world’s most intense neutrino beam a distance of 800 miles from Fermilab in Illinois to detectors deep underground at SURF in South Dakota. Credit: Fermilab As America’s particle physics laboratory, Fermilab is host to DUNE — a world-leading, flagship experiment that is the largest scientific project supported by the DOE Office of Science and the largest in the United States. The project will study the neutrino, one of the universe’s most abundant yet least understood subatomic particles. DUNE will send the world’s most intense neutrino beam a distance of 800 miles from Fermilab in Illinois to detectors deep underground at SURF, enabling it to explore fundamental questions about the nature of matter, the evolution of the universe and the origin of matter-antimatter asymmetry. In addition to expanding our fundamental knowledge, neutrino research has the vast potential to drive advances across a range of fields, including national security, communications and medical imaging. “DUNE is a powerful example of DOE’s commitment to advancing American leadership in science,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil, one of the attendees at today’s event. “On behalf of the entire DOE leadership team, I offer my congratulations to Fermilab and all those involved in this historic initiative, including our partners around the world who helped make this milestone possible.” Today’s event provided attendees the opportunity to sign one of the steel beams that will be installed underground for DUNE’s first detector module, including a cryostat that will be used to cool thousands of tons of liquid argon to about minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit to capture neutrino interactions with unprecedented precision. Each of the two planned modules will be roughly the size of a five-story building, measuring 216 feet long, 62 feet wide and 60 feet high. Once complete, the two cryostats will each house 17,000 tons of liquid argon nearly a mile underground at SURF. Approximately 10 million pounds of structural steel beams will be taken below ground to form the support structure for DUNE’s massive particle detector modules. The beams are an in-kind contribution from CERN. Photo credit: Matthew Kapust, SURF Mike Headley, the executive director of the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority and laboratory director at SURF, attributes the success of this project to the international collaboration behind this world-class research. “SURF is proud to be included among the 1,500 scientific collaborators from around the world who are working alongside hundreds of additional engineers and technicians to complete this project,” Headley said. “We’re excited to see the delivery of this steel a mile underground and to assist in the construction of this colossal experiment.” With the start of the installation of the underground detectors, Fermilab’s priority is to deliver the first neutrino beam to DUNE by 2031.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is America’s national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research.

Fermi Forward Discovery Group manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on social media. The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov. About SURF:Sanford Underground Research Facility is operated by the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority (SDSTA) with funding from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. We are America’s Underground Lab. Our mission is to advance world-class science and inspire learning across generations. For more information, please visit www.sanfordlab.org. About CERN:CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s leading laboratories for particle physics. The Organization is located on the French-Swiss border, with its headquarters in Geneva.

Its Member States are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Cyprus is an Associate Member State in the pre-stage to Membership. Brazil, Chile, Croatia, India, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Ukraine are Associate Member States. Japan and the United States of America currently have Observer status, as do the European Union and UNESCO. The Observer status of JINR is suspended in accordance with the CERN Council Resolution of 25 March 2022. For more information, please visit home.cern. Recommended reading View all news Using AI, Fermilab researcher probes how transistors behave in extreme cold May 26, 2026 AIcryogenicsGenesis MissionmicroelectronicsFermilab feature Olivia Seidel’s work draws on Fermilab’s deep expertise in microelectronics and cryogenic devices to support key goals of the Genesis Mission — a sweeping U.S. Department of Energy artificial intelligence initiative. DUNE will use liquid-argon time projection chamber technology both near and far May 21, 2026 Deep Underground Neutrino ExperimentDUNELBNFliquid argonneutrinoFermilab feature The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment’s innovative hybrid near detector will be a game changer. An active prototyping program over the last few years has been refining and validating the design of this smaller detector’s key element, a liquid-argon time projection chamber, and the data analysis tools and methods that go with it. A minute with Jacopo Bernardini April 27, 2026 DUNEengineeringPIP-IIFermilab feature After joining Fermilab in 2020, Jacopo Bernardini was recently appointed level-3 manager for the 650-MHz cryomodules for the Proton Improvement Plan-II project. PIP-II is building a new, powerful linear accelerator that will create the world’s most intense beam of neutrinos for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. An amateur triathlete outside of work, Bernardini enjoys working with collaborators around the world as well as watching a design become reality.