Brazil has become an associate member of CERN, Europe's physics laboratory announced Friday -- the first country in the Americas to do so.

The world's largest particle physics lab seeks to unravel what the universe is made of and how it works, aiming to advance the boundaries of human knowledge.

Brazil will now be able to play a deeper role in the facility's work.

An agreement was signed last March admitting Brazil as an associate member of CERN -- which has now come into force after Brasilia completed the accession and ratification process.

"This agreement enables Brazil and CERN to further strengthen our collaboration, opening up a broad range of new and mutually beneficial opportunities in fundamental research, technological developments and innovation, and education and training activities," CERN director-general Fabiola Gianotti said at the time.

The CERN lab on the edge of Geneva straddles the border between France and Switzerland. It employs some 2,500 people from around the world.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -- a 27-kilometre ring running about a hundred metres below ground -- was used to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson, dubbed the God particle, which broadened the understanding of how particles acquire mass.

Formal cooperation between CERN and Brazil dates back to 1990.

At the four main LHC experiments alone, about 200 Brazilian scientists, engineers and students collaborate in fields ranging from hardware and data processing to physics analysis.

Founded in 1954, CERN has 23 member states: 22 from Europe, plus Israel.

Cyprus, Estonia and Slovenia are associate members in the pre-stage to membership.

Brazil joins Pakistan, Croatia, India, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, Ukraine as associate member states.

As such, Brazil can appoint representatives to attend CERN council and finance committee meetings, the physics hub said.

"Its nationals are eligible to apply for limited-duration staff positions and CERN's graduate programmes, and its industry is entitled to bid for CERN contracts, increasing opportunities for industrial collaboration in advanced technologies," the laboratory said.