The Berkeley Gas-filled Separator, or BGS, is intended to provide highly efficient and selective separation of products of complete-fusion-evaporation nuclear reactions, from the production beam and other reaction products. The BGS is situated in Cave 1 of the 88-Inch Cyclotron of the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory (LBNL).

The FIONA mass analyzer (For the Identification Of Nuclide A) is designed to  collect superheavy element (SHE) ions from the BGS focal plane and then to transport them to a low-background area where the SHE ions can be separated by their mass-to-charge ratio (m/q) before their decays are finally detected in the FIONA decay station.

The Heavy Element Group has two spectroscopy stations designed to study the decay properties and nuclear structure of superheavy elements: the FIONA Decay Station located at the FIONA focal plane and the SHREC Detector located that the BGS focal plane.