Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB)

Helping researchers from around the world make important scientific discoveries

Found in the southeast portion of campus along Wilson Road, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is a user facility for the Office of Nuclear Physics in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC).

Hosting the most powerful heavy-ion accelerator, FRIB will provide researchers with more than 1,000 new rare isotopes never before produced on earth, enabling scientists to make discoveries about the properties of rare isotopes, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions, and applications for society, including in medicine, homeland security and industry. FRIB produces rare isotopes by accelerating a beam of atomic nuclei to half the speed of light and then smashing it into a thin target material. When the beam impacts the target, the resulting collision creates a number of reaction products, most with fewer protons and neutrons than the stable beam. Among those products are the rare isotopes requested by experimenters. Scientists use detectors to measure their unique properties or interaction with other nuclei. FRIB supports a community of 1,500 scientists from more than 50 countries.

DOE-SC selected MSU to design and establish FRIB, following a nationwide competition. MSU has the #1 nuclear physics graduate program in the United States. Training the next generation of scientists at a world-class campus-based DOE-SC user facility is a unique experience and top priority at FRIB. Each year approximately 26% of U.S. nuclear physics graduate students receive part of their training at MSU. FRIB expands on MSU’s practice to involve undergraduate and graduate students in research. FRIB also helps train the next generation accelerator science and engineering workforce, critical to U.S. economic competitiveness, energy security, nuclear security and nonproliferation efforts. In collaboration with the MSU College of Natural Science and the College of Engineering, FRIB attracts the best and brightest students into accelerator science and engineering.

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB)

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facility for nuclear science. Hosting the most powerful heavy-ion accelerator, FRIB will provide intense beams of rare isotopes (short-lived nuclei not normally found on Earth). FRIB will enable scientists to make discoveries about the properties of these rare isotopes in order to better understand the physics of atomic nuclei, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions, and applications of rare isotopes benefiting society. FRIB will play a vital role in developing the next generation of scientific leaders and innovators.

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