Contact: Georg Bollen, National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, (517) 355-9672, Ext. 435, bollen@nscl.msu.edu; David Morrissey, Chemistry, (517) 355-9672, Ext. 321, morrissey@nscl.msu.edu; or Tom Oswald, University Relations, (517) 355-2281, oswald@msu.edu

6/17/2005

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Scientists at Michigan State University have developed a technique that puts the brakes on isotopes that are moving at nearly half the speed of light, or about 90,000 miles per second, giving the researchers the opportunity to study them more closely.

An MSU team, led by Georg Bollen, professor of physics and astronomy, and David Morrissey, professor of chemistry, was able to harness the isotopes by using the Low Energy Beam and Ion Trap, or LEBIT, a piece of equipment that was designed and built at MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL).

In LEBIT, the movement of the atoms is slowed down to the point at which they can be kept floating in a vacuum in a device called an ion trap. This gives the scientists a longer and cleaner look at them, allowing them to measure their properties more precisely.

“This work will allow us to go in a completely new direction of experimentation,” said Georg Bollen, a professor in the NSCL. “This will open a lot of new doors because previously the stopped ions were stuck in solid materials.”

Isotopes are atoms whose nuclei have the same atomic number – or numbers of protons – but different atomic masses. It’s the study of these isotopes that can give us hints as to how the universe was formed, as well as help us to understand what holds atoms together and how stars transform isotopes into other isotopes.

In this particular experiment, the researchers used the calcium isotope known as Ca-38. The coupled cyclotrons located within MSU’s NSCL produced this isotope, whose lifespan is less than half a second. LEBIT was used to stop the atoms moving at half the speed of light and to capture and keep them in LEBIT’s ion trap long enough to provide an incredibly accurate reading of its mass.

“To give an idea of the precision,” Bollen said, “this would be comparable to that of weighing a 30-ton truck and being able to tell if a single dollar bill was left inside or not.”

This work is also important for the planned Rare Isotope Accelerator, or RIA, project.

“The stopping of fast rare isotopes is one of the techniques foreseen for this facility,” Bollen said. “The NSCL team was the first to test this technique at RIA-like conditions and to provide low-energy beams for an experiment similar to those planned at RIA.”

RIA would be a nuclear accelerator facility designed to study isotopes that decay in a very short time (“rare” isotopes). In addition to advancing science and discovering new insights, it could also lead to breakthroughs in fields such as medicine and astronomy.