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The Michigan State University Cyclotron Laboratory: Its Early Years

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Abstract

The Michigan State University Cyclotron Laboratory was founded in 1958 and over the years grew in stature, becoming the highest-ranked university-based program in nuclear science. Its K50 cyclotron had unmatched capability as a light-ion accelerator and helped to define what a modern cyclotron could do to advance our understanding of nuclei. This paper describes the first twenty years of the Cyclotron Laboratory’s evolution and gives some insight into the cultural characteristics of the laboratory, and of its early members, that led it to thrive.

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Notes

  1. In what follows, I refer to the institution that has been known since 1964 as Michigan State University by that name or by MSU. Its name at establishment was the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, but it became the State Agricultural College in 1861, Michigan Agricultural College in 1909, Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science in 1925, Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science in 1955.

  2. The bending power of a cyclotron is often expressed by a parameter K. For protons, K is approximately the energy in MeV of the protons that can be accelerated. More generally, for an ion of charge Q and mass number A, the energy is given by Q 2/A. It is common to refer to a cyclotron with K = 50 as a K50 cyclotron or as a K50. During its lifetime, however, the K50 was referred to as the MSU Cyclotron.

  3. The word "dees" is a relic from the early Lawrence cyclotron, where the electrodes were indeed “D” shaped. In a modern cyclotron, the geometry is much more complex, but the name remains.

  4. Resolution is a measure of the spacing of the states in a nucleus that one can distinguish in a nuclear reaction. For example if the resolution is 5 keV, one can distinguish reactions leading to two states that are about 5 keV apart. Sometimes, one also quotes the resolution as a fraction. If the particle energy is 30,000 keV and the resolution is 3 keV, one can say it is 1 part in 10,000, as in this example. Such resolution is difficult to achieve.

  5. The harmonic number n is the ratio of the radiofrequency to the orbital frequency of the ions.

  6. The advantage of a two-stage facility with a cyclotron as the second stage is that the energy a cyclotron produces increases with the square of the charge of the accelerated ion. The ion from the injector will be stripped of many electrons during its injection into the second-stage cyclotron, thereby obtaining a high charge and making high energies possible.

  7. NSAC, initially called NUSAC, was formed in 1977 by the NSF and DOE to provide advice on their research and construction priorities in nuclear physics.

References

  1. For accounts particularly relevant to this paper, see: Madison Kuhn, Michigan State: The First One Hundred Years (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1955); John A. Hannah, A Memoir (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press 1980), an informal account of his life and connection to Michigan State University; Clarence H. Suelter, A History of the College of Natural Science, Michigan State University 1855–2005 (East Lansing: College of Natural Science Alumni Association, 2008), a historical compendium with many pictures of the various departments and research institutes that make up the MSU College of Natural Science.

  2. On December 11, 2008, DOE announced: “Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing, Michigan has been selected to design and establish the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB)…. The selection is subject to successful negotiation of a Cooperative Agreement with MSU and a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review of the proposed site. Funding is subject to annual appropriations by Congress.” The Cooperative agreement was signed by the DOE and MSU on June 8, 2009. “U.S. Department of Energy Selects Michigan State University To Design and Establish Facility for Rare Isotope Beams,” accessed September 24, 2015, http://energy.gov/articles/us-department-energy-selects-michigan-state-university-design-and-establish-facility-rare.

  3. Richard Schlegel, letter to Henry Blosser, December 14, 1977. This and other unpublished documents cited are in the author’s possession unless otherwise noted.

  4. Report of MSU Physics Department activities, 1959.

  5. Lawrence Jones, Frederick Mills, Andrew Sessler, Keith Symon, and Donald Young, Innovation Was Not Enough: A History of the Midwestern Universities Research Association (MURA) (Singapore: World Scientific, 2010).

  6. Minutes of Physics Department Staff Meeting, October 26, 1956.

  7. Milton E. Muelder, letter to Richard Schlegel, February 10, 1978, recalling his earlier comments.

  8. Minutes of a meeting of the Nuclear Physics Committee on February 22, 1957.

  9. Minutes of the special meetings of the staff of the Department of Physics dealing with the Report of the Nuclear Physics Planning Committee, March 5–8, 1957.

  10. Summary of Study on Nuclear Physics Particle Accelerators, March 25, 1957.

  11. “A Proposed Heavy-Ion Cyclotron,” Report of the Committee on Nuclear Research, June 1957.

  12. Henry Blosser, interview by Sesquicentennial Oral History Project, August 9, 2000, Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections, East Lansing, MI.

  13. B. L. Cohen, letter to Robert Spence, January 14, 1958; R. S. Livingston, letter to Sherwood Haynes, January 17, 1958.

  14. Sherwood Haynes, offer letter to Henry Blosser, January 21, 1958.

  15. Blosser, interview (ref. 11).

  16. A discussion of this possibility began, after preliminary conversations, in a letter from Blosser to Bromley of May 14, 1958. Bromley expressed interest in a four-page letter to Haynes dated May 27, 1958. A letter from Blosser to Bromley dated September 2, 1958, concerns an offer to Bromley (no record available).

  17. D. Allan Bromley, letter to Sherwood Haynes, October 1, 1958.

  18. Henry Blosser, letter to Bromley, October 5, 1958, states that this offer has President Hannah’s approval but that it seems better to keep it informal at this point.

  19. D. Allan Bromley, letter to Henry Blosser, November 19, 1959.

  20. He had great influence in the development of nuclear physics in the US, was director of Yale’s A. W. Wright Nuclear Structure Lab, served as President G. H. W. Bush’s science advisor, and was awarded the National Medal of Science.

  21. E. O. Lawrence and M. S. Livingston, “The Production of High Speed Light Ions Without the Use of High Voltages,” Physical Review 40 (1932), 19–35.

  22. H. A. Bethe and M. E. Rose, “The Maximum Energy Obtainable from the Cyclotron,” Physical Review 52 (1937), 1254–55; J. A. Martin, “Radioisotopes Production in the ORNL 86-Inch Cyclotron,” Physical Review 91 (1953), 224; B. L. Cohen and R. V. Neidigh, “Angular Distributions of 22-Mev Protons Elastically Scattered by Various Elements,” Physical Review 93 (1954), 282–87.

  23. H. G. Blosser, R. E. Worsham, C. D. Goodman, R. S. Livingston, J. E. Mann, H. M. Moseley, G. T. Trammel, and T. A. Welton, “Four-Sector Azimuthally Varying Field Cyclotron,” Review of Scientific Instruments 29 (1958), 819–34.

  24. Paul W. McDaniel, DOE Acting Director of the Division of Research, letter to MSU Vice President Milton Muelder, October 29, 1959.

  25. Milton E. Muelder, letter to President Hannah, November 2, 1961.

  26. MISTIC was a copy of the University of Illinois ILLIAC computer. It took 100 microseconds for addition and 1000 microseconds for multiplication operations. MISTIC used an operating system similar to the ORNL computer, which eased the transfer of programs used in the 1958 proposal. For other details, see the article entitled “MISTIC,” Wikipedia, accessed September 24, 2015, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISTIC and the references therein.

  27. This summary of actions is taken from a letter summarizing cyclotron proposal status. Prepared by H. G. Blosser for MSU Vice-President P. J. May, June 3, 1960.

  28. “Proposal for a Nuclear Research Facility in the Medium Energy (50 MeV) Range Utilizing a Variable Energy Multi-Particle Cyclotron” submitted to NSF on December 12, 1960.

  29. Milton E. Muelder, MSU vice president and dean, letter to President Hannah, March 2, 1961.

  30. Milton E. Muelder, letter to J. Howard McMillan, NSF Program Director for Nuclear Physics, April 19, 1961.

  31. George Kolstad, DOE, letter to MSU Vice President Milton Muelder, September 29, 1961.

  32. Alan T. Waterman, NSF director, award letter to President Hannah, October 4, 1961.

  33. Henry Blosser, “Cyclotron Laboratory Facts and Photographs,” Progress Report, July 1963.

  34. Account from the June 1964 and July 1965 Proposals to the NSF for support of the Nuclear Physics Program at the MSU Cyclotron.

  35. July 1965 Proposal to the NSF for support of the Nuclear Physics Program at the MSU Cyclotron, 13.

  36. Comments made to the author by several people at MSU, to whom I mentioned I was writing this account.

  37. J. O. Kopf, and P. J. Plauger, “JANUS: A Flexible Approach to Realtime Timesharing,” in Proceedings of the December 9–11, 1968, Fall Joint Computer Conference, Part II (New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery, 1968), 1033–42.

  38. S. E. Woosley. A. Heger, T. Rauscher, and R. D. Hoffman, “Nuclear Data Needs for the Study of Nucleosynthesis in Massive Stars,” Nuclear Physics A 718 (2003), 3–12.

  39. Compilation of relevant papers in a letter from James M. Tiedje to Henry Blosser, September 17, 1981.

  40. Robert Doering, interview by Orville Butler, December 9, 2008, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD, http://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/33752.

  41. R. T. Siegel, letter to Henry Blosser, August 7, 1967.

  42. Robert Wilson, letters to Henry Blosser, July 24, 1967 and January 1, 1968; Henry Blosser, letter to Wilson, January 17, 1968.

  43. “Proposal for a Versatile Trans-Uranic Research Facility Utilizing a 720(Z2/A) MeV Variable Energy Multi-particle Cyclotron,” May 1969, plus July addenda.

  44. Paul W. McDaniel, Director of Division of Research, AEC, letter to John E. Cantlon, April 2, 1970.

  45. Minutes of Physics Department Advisory Committee, January 27, 1971.

  46. This Committee, chaired by Herman Feshbach of MIT, met in July 1973.

  47. J. J. Burgerjon and A. Strathdee, eds., Proceedings of the Sixth International Cyclotron Conference, Vancouver, Canada, 18–21 July 1972 (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1972), 24.

  48. MSUCP-28 Proposal for a Prototype Superconducting Magnet for a Heavy Ion Cyclotron, submitted to NSF and DOE, July 1974.

  49. Ibid.

  50. William C. Parkinson, University of Michigan, letter to attendees at the January 11, 1969, meeting of representatives of ANL and AUA universities, March 12, 1969.

  51. Henry Blosser, letter to University Nuclear Scientist Neighbors, October 4, 1974.

  52. Henry Blosser, letter to the Midwest Nuclear Group, July 11, 1975.

  53. Gaylord R. Ellis, NSF letter approving a grant of $201,400 for “Construction of the Prototype High Precision Superconducting Magnet,” June 16, 1975. Additional funds of $500,300 and $300,000 were received in 1976 and 1977, respectively.

  54. MSUCL-222, “Proposal for a National Facility for Research with Heavy Ions Using Superconducting Cyclotrons,” September 1976.

  55. In mid-1963, there were three engineers and draftsmen (plus three from Brobeck Associates), four technicians, five machinists, and one secretary, a total of 16. This had grown to eighteen in 1970; the increase comprised an additional secretary and administrator.

  56. A count of NSCL/FRIB staff by Rose McClurg in June 2013 found 88 high-level technical appointments in a continuing appointment system, 158 support staff in MSU-wide employment systems (administrative-professionals, clerical-technical and skilled trades), 48 faculty (mostly physics and chemistry department), 90 undergraduate students, 57 graduate students, 28 research associates, and 45 others: scientific visitors, consultants, MSU personnel connected with the NSCL or FRIB.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Catherine Westfall for reading an early version of this paper and suggesting how it might be strengthened. The paper is better, also, because of comments made by the referee in an extended and careful review. The preparation of the manuscript was supported in part by Michigan State University.

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  1. National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), Michigan State University, 640 South Shaw Lane, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Sam M. Austin

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Correspondence to Sam M. Austin.

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Sam M. Austin is University Distinguished Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Michigan State University and performs research at MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory.

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Austin, S.M. The Michigan State University Cyclotron Laboratory: Its Early Years. Phys. Perspect. 17, 298–333 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-015-0175-7

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