Borst worked as a senior physicist on the Manhattan Project from 1943 to 1946 at the Clinton Laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In 1944 Ernest O. Wollan and Borst used neutron diffraction to produce "rocking curves" for crystals of gypsum and sodium chloride (salt).Wollan, E. O. and Borst, L. B. (1945). Physics Section III Monthly Report for the Period Ending December 31, 1944. Metallurgical Project Report No. M-CP-2222. Clinton Laboratories. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. 1945.Mason, T. E.; Gawne, T. J.; Nagler, S. E.; Nestor, M. B.; Carpenter, J. M. (2013). "The early development of neutron diffraction: Science in the wings of the Manhattan Project" (PDF). Acta Crystallographica Section A 69: 37–44. doi:10.1107/S0108767312036021 In 1946 Karl Z. Morgan and Borst at Oak Ridge develop a film badge to measure worker exposure to fast neutrons.Morgan, K. Z. (1947). Health Physics and its control of radiation exposures at Clinton Laboratories. Technical Information Division, Oak Ridge Operations.Morgan, K. Z. (1947). Health physics and its control of radiation exposures at Clinton National Laboratory. Chem. Engineering News. 25, 3794. From 1946 to 1951 Borst was Chairman of the Department of Reactor Science and Engineering at Brookhaven National Laboratory and was responsible for the operation and oversight of the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor.Crease, Robert P. (1999). Making Physics: A Biography of Brookhaven National Laboratory, 1946-1972. University of Chicago Press. He played a key role in the design of the research reactor. Borst was at the University of Utah from 1951 to 1953 as Professor of Physics. From 1956 to 1961 he was Chairman of the Department of Physics at the College of Engineering at New York University. From 1961 to 1983 Borst was Professor of Physics at State University of New York in Buffalo, New York and was appointed Professor Emeritus in 1983. In 1969 he served as Master of Clifford Furnas College at the State University of New York at Buffalo.Wright, Frances Elizabeth. (2002). Dr. Lyle Benjamin Borst, 1912 – 2002, Professor of Physics at University of Buffalo, 1961-1983. University of Buffalo.O'Connor, Anahad. (12 August 2002). Lyle Benjamin Borst. The New York Times.
