A gas-jet transport and catcher technique for on-line production of radioactive ion beams using an electron cyclotron resonance ion-source

V Naik; A Chakrabarti; M Bhattacharjee; P Karmakar; A Bandyopadhyay; S Bhattacharjee; S Dechoudhury; M Mondal; H K Pandey; D Lavanyakumar; T K Mandi; D P Dutta; T Kundu Roy; D Bhowmick; D Sanyal; S C L Srivastava; A Ray; Md S Ali

doi:10.1063/1.4792594

A gas-jet transport and catcher technique for on-line production of radioactive ion beams using an electron cyclotron resonance ion-source

Rev Sci Instrum. 2013 Mar;84(3):033301. doi: 10.1063/1.4792594.

Authors

V Naik¹, A Chakrabarti, M Bhattacharjee, P Karmakar, A Bandyopadhyay, S Bhattacharjee, S Dechoudhury, M Mondal, H K Pandey, D Lavanyakumar, T K Mandi, D P Dutta, T Kundu Roy, D Bhowmick, D Sanyal, S C L Srivastava, A Ray, Md S Ali

Affiliation

¹ Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Sector-1, Block-AF, Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata 700064, India. vaishali@vecc.gov.in

PMID: 23556809
DOI: 10.1063/1.4792594

Abstract

Radioactive ion beams (RIB) have been produced on-line, using a gas-jet recoil transport coupled Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion-source at the VECC-RIB facility. Radioactive atoms∕molecules carried through the gas-jet were stopped in a catcher placed inside the ECR plasma chamber. A skimmer has been used to remove bulk of the carrier gas at the ECR entrance. The diffusion of atoms∕molecules through the catcher has been verified off-line using stable isotopes and on-line through transmission of radioactive reaction products. Beams of (14)O (71 s), (42)K (12.4 h), (43)K (22.2 h), and (41)Ar (1.8 h) have been produced by bombarding nitrogen and argon gas targets with proton and alpha particle beams from the K130 cyclotron at VECC. Typical measured intensity of RIB at the separator focal plane is found to be a few times 10(3) particles per second (pps). About 3.2 × 10(3) pps of 1.4 MeV (14)O RIB has been measured after acceleration through a radiofrequency quadrupole linac. The details of the gas-jet coupled ECR ion-source and RIB production experiments are presented along with the plans for the future.