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Research Laboratory of Electronics

1946 establishments in MassachusettsMIT Radiation LaboratoryMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyUniversity and college laboratories in the United States

The Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) is an applied physics and electrical engineering research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Established on July 1, 1946, as MIT's first interdepartmental laboratory, it became a model for postwar academic science, combining basic electronics research with military funding and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Emerging from the wartime Radiation Laboratory and supported primarily by the military's Joint Services Electronics Program, RLE trained hundreds of doctoral students in fields ranging from microwave electronics to communications theory, producing numerous MIT leaders by the early 1960s.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Research Laboratory of Electronics (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Research Laboratory of Electronics
Compton Court, Cambridge

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02238 Cambridge
Massachusetts, United States
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MIT Radiation Laboratory

The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (US). It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 31 December 1945 when its functions were dispersed to industry, other departments within MIT, and in 1951, the newly formed MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The use of microwaves for various radio and radar uses was highly desired before the war, but existing microwave devices like the klystron were far too low powered to be useful. Alfred Lee Loomis, a millionaire and physicist who headed his own private laboratory, organized the Microwave Committee to consider these devices and look for improvements. In early 1940, Winston Churchill organized what became the Tizard Mission to introduce US researchers to several new technologies the UK had been developing. Among these was the cavity magnetron, a leap forward in the creation of microwaves that made them practical for the first time. Loomis arranged for funding under the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) and reorganized the Microwave Committee at MIT to study the magnetron and radar technology in general. Lee A. DuBridge served as the Rad Lab director. The lab rapidly expanded, and within months was larger than the UK's efforts which had been running for several years by this point. By 1943 the lab began to deliver a stream of ever-improved devices, which could be produced in huge numbers by the US's industrial base. At its peak, the Rad Lab employed 4,000 at MIT and several other labs around the world, and designed half of all the radar systems used during the war. By the end of the war, the US held a leadership position in a number of microwave-related fields. Among their notable products were the SCR-584, the finest gun-laying radar of the war, and the SCR-720, an airborne interception radar that became the standard late-war system for both US and UK night fighters. They also developed the H2X, a version of the British H2S bombing radar that operated at shorter wavelengths in the X band. The Rad Lab also developed Loran-A, the first worldwide radio navigation system, which originally was known as "LRN" for Loomis Radio Navigation.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has since played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, ranking it among the top academic institutions in the world.Founded in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. The institute has an urban campus that extends more than a mile (1.6 km) alongside the Charles River, and encompasses a number of major off-campus facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Bates Center, and the Haystack Observatory, as well as affiliated laboratories such as the Broad and Whitehead Institutes. As of December 2021, 98 Nobel laureates, 26 Turing Award winners, and 8 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT as alumni, faculty members, or researchers. In addition, 58 National Medal of Science recipients, 29 National Medals of Technology and Innovation recipients, 50 MacArthur Fellows, 80 Marshall Scholars, 41 astronauts, 16 Chief Scientists of the U.S. Air Force, and numerous heads of states have been affiliated with MIT. The institute also has a strong entrepreneurial culture and MIT alumni have founded or co-founded many notable companies. MIT is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and has received more Sloan Research Fellowships than any other university in North America.