Michigan State University today announced the signing of a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy concerning the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. The agreement, an important milestone towards establishing the FRIB Project, provides the instrument for DOE Office of Science to provide financial assistance to MSU to design and establish the new facility.

FRIB will be a DOE National User Facility within the department’s Office of Nuclear Physics portfolio and located on the MSU campus. FRIB will be a new research tool for probing into the heart of atoms.

The centerpiece of the new user facility will be a superconducting linear accelerator that will dramatically increase the reach of rare isotope research in the United States. The accelerator will produce isotopes that normally exist only in the most extreme environments in the universe and will greatly expand the usefulness of isotopes in a broad range of applications from modeling stars to understanding the workings of nanoscale electronic devices.

“We are very pleased to be able to take this next step in the process of bringing FRIB to MSU,” said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. “This is an important project for American science and the state of Michigan. Not only will this keep MSU on the cutting edge of nuclear science, it will ensure that we honor our commitment of training the nuclear scientists of tomorrow while bolstering the economies of mid-Michigan and the entire state.” 

https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2009/msu-us-department-of-energy-sign-agreement-for-frib