ANCORP Manufactures Custom Diagnostic Chamber For Facility For Rare Isotope Beams
The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU) is a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) to support the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. Hosting the most powerful heavy-ion accelerator, FRIB focuses on generating fast, stopped, and accelerated rare isotope beams for the purpose of studying nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, and their fundamental applications. Just over a decade in the making, FRIB recently produced and identified its first rare isotopes. Completing this final objective marks the end of the user facility’s construction and the beginning of its ability to host user experiments in the upcoming year. ANCORP is proud to have played a role in the functionality of the facility’s accelerator through the manufacture of warm diagnostic chambers.
The linear accelerator’s pathway uses a series of cryomodules that house superconducting radio frequency cavities that use electromagnetics to direct and focus beam light. This direction relies on a cryomodule’s ability to operate in cryogenic temperatures to maintain superconducting capabilities. Due to these capability requirements, FRIB required the manufacture of a custom ultra-high vacuum chamber with the ability to mount diagnostic instrumentation between their cryomodules.
Pictured: A cryomodule which houses superconducting radio frequency cavities.
ANCORP’s manufacture of this custom chamber for FRIB will aid in its mission to enable physicists to search for answers about “nuclear structure, the origin of the elements in the cosmos, and the forces that shape the evolution of the universe”. Due to the nature of the chamber’s application, it must be installed in a cleanroom to reduce the potential for particle contaminants in the cryomodule’s radio frequency cavities.
Pictured to the right are two FRIB team members installing the custom warm diagnostic chamber in a temporary clean room in the linear accelerator tunnel. The chamber itself features several ports for mounting diagnostic instrumentation. This provision will provide information on the beams that pass through the cryomodules the chambers are housed between. To read more about the installation, view FRIB’s installation announcement at https://frib.msu.edu/news/2017/warm-diag.html
ANCORP supports advancements in research & development by supplying universities and national lab facilities with leading ultra-high vacuum chambers and custom components. High and ultra-high vacuum chambers are engineered products that require a specialized set of materials and fabrication processes. From initial inquiry to packaging and shipping, ANCORP engineers and project support staff work hard to ensure custom projects meet the highest quality standards and are delivered on schedule. Supporting researchers at universities with the tools they need to make developments in instrumentation, imaging, particle physics, material science, and more is what allows us to empower the future of science and technology. To learn more about our custom capabilities, please visit https://ancorp.com/custom-fabrication-chambers or chat with an applications engineer at 1-800-FLANGE-1.
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