The Department of Energy’s Electron-Ion Collider, a.k.a. EIC, project has passed the Critical Decision 3A phase, allowing the procurement of equipment, materials and services necessary to build the nuclear physics research machine.
The milestone approves long-lead procurements of approximately $90 million worth of materials and items for the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s EIC machine that will be built in partnership with the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Brookhaven said Tuesday.
Materials include cryogenic equipment for superconducting accelerator devices, superconducting wires and materials for making magnets, substations for new power-supply and support infrastructure buildings, lead tungstate crystals and scintillating fibers for detectors and specialized detector and accelerator components.
Brookhaven and Jefferson Lab plan to launch a full and open competition for the procurement of EIC equipment from U.S.-based industrial technology manufacturers.
The procurement will be funded in part by the Inflation Reduction Act funding awarded to Brookhaven in 2022 to support clean energy research and nuclear physics projects.
“Passing this milestone and getting these procurements underway will help us achieve our ultimate goal of efficiently delivering a unique high-energy, high-luminosity polarized beam electron-ion collider that will be one of the most challenging and exciting accelerator complexes ever built,” said EIC Project Director Jim Yeck.