Welcome to FRIB
The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU) is a world-class research and training center, hosting the most powerful rare-isotope accelerator. MSU operates FRIB as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), with financial support from and furthering the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. FRIB is where researchers come together to make discoveries that change the world. They study the properties and fundamental interactions of rare isotopes and nuclear astrophysics and their impact on medicine, homeland security, and industry.
Research areas
FRIB advances nuclear science by improving our understanding of nuclei and their role in the universe, while also advancing accelerator systems.
Capabilities
In establishing and operating FRIB, capabilities were developed that transfer to other industries and applications.
User facilities
FRIB hosts the world’s most powerful heavy-ion accelerator and enables discoveries in rare isotopes, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions, and societal applications like medicine, security, and industry.
Learn more about upcoming events taking place at FRIB.
We report the first Penning-trap mass measurements of the proton rich 101,103Sn at the Low Energy Beam and Ion Trap (LEBIT) located at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Precise mass measurements are both fundamental to understanding nuclear stability and testing theoretical predictions. Substantial interest surrounds the tin isotopic chain near the doubly-magic 100Sn isotope. Since the mass of 100Sn is currently disputed in the recent 2020 Atomic Mass Evaluation (AME2020) database, precise mass values for neighboring isotopes provide necessary anchor points for testing extrapolations toward the proton drip line. However, performing mass measurements in this region is a formidable task given that isotopes around 100Sn have very short half-lives and the reactions used to produce them have low production cross sections. As a result, the masses of both 101,103Sn were also not well-known at the time of AME2020, with 103Sn even being classified as a “seriously irregular mass” and given an extrapolated value. LEBIT's mass measurements of 101,103Sn are thus a testament to the reach of state-of-the-art radioactive ion beam facilities such as FRIB. These experimental results both well anchor the masses of connected parent isotopes and further illuminate the ongoing discrepancy in the mass of 100Sn. They additionally allowed for a comprehensive assessment of the predictive power of a recently developed Bayesian model combination (BMC) framework employing statistical machine learning to perform mass extrapolations. Excellent agreement between BMC predictions and experimental mass values in the region, including those from LEBIT, provided confidence in the extrapolations of tin masses down to the potential proton drip line nucleus 96Sn, a region of the nuclear chart that is not yet accessible in the laboratory. As experimental campaigns push closer to exotic nuclei such as 100Sn, the interplay of precise mass values with theoretical frameworks will continue to provide crucial insights into nuclear structure.
Education & training
FRIB at MSU is a world-class research and training center where students and researchers from all career stages and backgrounds come together to make discoveries that change the world.
External news and journal publications discussing FRIB.
Michigan State University's K500 Chip Testing Facility, inaugurated in February at FRIB, cost approximately $14 million to establish, with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Defense. The project repurposed the campus' K500 superconducting cyclotron, completed in 1982 for high-energy, heavy-ion research, including producing and accelerating ion beams to study nuclear structure, to now allow the facility to test semiconductors for space, defense and on-Earth applications.
Researchers have reported new experimental results addressing the origin of rare proton-rich isotopes heavier than iron, called p-nuclei. Led by Artemis Tsantiri, then-graduate student at FRIB and current postdoctoral fellow at the University of Regina in Canada, the study presents the first rare isotope beam measurement of proton capture on arsenic-73 to produce selenium-74, providing new constraints on how the lightest p-nucleus is formed and destroyed in the cosmos.
One of the nation's premier research facilities located at Michigan State University is getting a multi-million dollar upgrade. Late last month, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science approved $49.7 million for MSU's Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.
