ATOMKI is the Institute for Nuclear Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The institute is located in Debrecen and was established in 1954 by Sándor Szalay, the founding director.

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. (August 2010)

ATOMKI became independent from the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Kossuth Lajos University (presently called University of Debrecen), where Sándor Szalay started and directed nuclear physics research for decades. At present, the main research fields of Atomki are atom-, nuclear-, and particle physics, ion beam analytics, technique of detection and signal processing, environmental analytics, radioactive dating, radiochemistry, and solid state physics. The director is Zsolt Dombrádi, D.Sc.

Some of its buildings were originally the National Orphanage for Teachers' Children, built in 1917.^[1]

• X17 particle