Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel (LNE-LNHB) at the Commissariat a l'Energie atomique (CEA/LIST)

The Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel (LNHB) is the French National Metrology Laboratory for ionizing radiation since 1969, date of creation of the Bureau National de Metrologie (BNM). According to the reorganization of French metrology in 2005, the BNM was replaced by the Laboratoire National de metrologie et d'Essais (LNE) as National Metrology Institute. In this frame, the LNHB is today one of the four French national laboratories, federated by the LNE to cover the entire domains of metrology (time, length, mass, electricity, and others). The LNHB is in charge of the metrology of absorbed dose and activity. At present, it operates (i) a Manganese-bath for neutron primary standard of flux; (ii) 60Co and 137Cs collimated beams for radiation protection and radiotherapy; (iii) high-energy RX photons and electrons from a LINAC for external radiotherapy; (iv) 192Ir HDR and PDR for brachytherapy; (v) soft X rays for diagnosis, mammography and industry; and (vi) beta radiation fields for radiation protection purposes of workers and patients. The mains tasks of the LNHB are (i) to maintain the existing references at the best level; (ii) to create new references meeting the needs of the society for health and industry; and (iii) to transfer the references to the users through Secondary Standard Labs (SSL) or directly when commercial services do not exist. The LNHB is accredited by the French accreditation body (COFRAC) to ISO 17025 and participates in the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) between National Metrology Institutes