Ion source developments for the production of radioactive isotope beams at TRIUMF

Rev Sci Instrum. 2014 Feb;85(2):02B912. doi: 10.1063/1.4833926.

Abstract

At the ISAC facility at TRIUMF radioactive ions are produced by bombarding solid targets with up to 100 μA of 500 MeV protons. The reaction products have to diffuse out of the hot target into an ion source. Normally, singly charged ions are extracted. They can be transported either directly to experiments or via an ECR charge state breeder to a post accelerator. Several different types of ion sources have to be used in order to deliver a large variety of rare isotope beams. At ISAC those are surface ion sources, forced electron beam arc discharge (FEBIAD) ion sources and resonant laser ionization sources. Recent development activities concentrated on increasing the selectivity for the ionization to suppress isobaric contamination in the beam. Therefore, a surface ion rejecting resonant laser ionization source (SIRLIS) has been developed to suppress ions from surface ionization. For the FEBIAD ion source a cold transfer line has been introduced to prevent less volatile components from reaching the ion source.