Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is a scientific user facility for nuclear science, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), Michigan State University (MSU), and the State of Michigan.

[1] FRIB will provide researchers with the technical capabilities to study the properties of rare isotopes (that is, short-lived atomic nuclei not normally found on Earth).

[5] On December 11, 2008, the DOE-SC announced the selection of Michigan State University to design and establish FRIB.

[7] On August 1, 2013, DOE-SC approved the project baseline (CD-2) and the start of civil construction (CD-3a), pending a notice to proceed.

In March 2017, FRIB achieved beneficial occupancy of civil construction, and technical installation activities escalated as a result.

[13] In August 2019, the radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) was conditioned above 100 kW, the CW power needed to achieve the FRIB mission goal of accelerating uranium beams.

The High Rigidity Spectrometer and Isotope Harvesting Vault will house isotope-harvesting research equipment and provide space for experiments.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette announced the designation at a special ceremony held outdoors at MSU, under a tent adjacent to FRIB.

[20] On June 22, 2022, the first experiment at FRIB, which studied the beta decay of calcium-48 fragments that are so unstable that they only exist for mere fractions of a second, concluded successfully.

On 11–12 July 2018, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams accelerated first beam in three of forty-six superconducting cryomodules (painted green). Beam in the warm radio-frequency quadrupole was previously accelerated in September 2017.
The FRIB cryogenic plant made its first liquid helium at 4.5 kelvin (K) on 16 November 2017. Photo courtesy of MSU Communications and Brand Strategy.
In March 2015, workers poured nearly 3,600 cubic yards of concrete into the linear accelerator tunnel. Photo courtesy of MSU Communications and Brand Strategy.
This photo from March 4, 2017, shows the construction of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.
In March 2017, FRIB achieved beneficial occupancy of civil construction.