Exotic isotopes will soon become less exotic, thanks to two new North American facilities in the works. The Advanced Rare Isotope Laboratory (ARIEL) at TRIUMF, Canada’s particle and nuclear physics lab in Vancouver, British Columbia, is on target to start experiments in 2017 and build up in phases through 2021. And the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU) is set to start up by 2022.
Rare isotopes may help decode how heavy elements form and what lies beyond the standard model. In addition, the new facilities will produce isotopes for materials, environmental, and medical research and applications. Alpha-emitting isotopes such as actinium-225, for example, “hold promise for treating late-stage and difficult-to-locate cancers,” says ARIEL project leader Lia Merminga.
At ARIEL, a proton or electron beam hits a target. Isotopes resulting from interactions diffuse to the target surface and form an ion beam that is separated...
