Nuclear
Many opportunities exist for graduate education and post-doctoral research in nuclear chemistry.
Research is primarily carried out at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), a modern laboratory exploiting superconducting technology to produce beams of unstable isotopes that is located next to the Chemistry Building, right on campus. The NSCL is beginning the construction of the next generation Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) that will continue world leadership at Michigan State in this field.
The NSCL is funded by the National Science Foundation to operate the Coupled Cyclotron Facility, along with the projectile-fragment separator. This combination can provide beams of a variety of isotopes including the most exotic ones.
Ph.D. projects range from studies using particle decay spectroscopy with advanced radiation detectors and new methods of data acquisition in the group headed by Sean Liddick, to investigations of the shapes and structures of short-lived radioisotopes using colinear laser spectroscopy in Paul Mantica's group, to studies of fusion reactions induced with radioactive ion beams, exploration of the nuclear equation of state, and to experimental investigation of heavy-ion induced reactions for production of the most exotic ion beams, beta-decay studies at the limits of stability, and thermalization of radioactive beams for further detailed studies in the group headed by David Morrissey.
Piotr Piecuch and his group, and their nuclear physics collaborators have demonstrated the great utility of modern, quantum-chemistry inspired coupled-cluster approximations, originally developed for electronic systems, in the field of nuclear structure theory. This has enabled accurate coupled-cluster computations for medium size nuclei.