Development of a Liquid Lithium Charge Stripper for FRIB

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) being built at Michigan State University for the US DOE will deliver heavy ion beams with beam power of 400 kW. SRF cavities accelerate the ions to energies above 200 MeV/u. At energies of 16-20 MeV/u a charge stripper increases the charge state just before the first bend in the linac (a second bend is located downstream). Due to the high power deposition on the stripping media and radiation damage solid strippers are not practical. The baseline design selected a liquid lithium film stripper. This stripper has been developed in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory. A stripper module is being built at MSU with an estimated completion date of December 2015. We plan to operate the stripper outside the FRIB tunnel for 18 months to learn the reliability and stability issues before final installation in the accelerator.