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Summer Student Lecture Programme Course
Isolde Physics Overview
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Europe/Zurich
500/1-001 - Main Auditorium (CERN)
Description
The On-Line Isotope Mass Separator ISOLDE is a facility dedicated to the production of a large variety of radioactive ion beams for
a great number of different experiments in the fields of nuclear and atomic physics, solid-state physics, life sciences and material
science. The facility, located at the Proton Synchroton Booster (PSB) of CERN, is operated by CERN for the ISOLDE Collaboration.
At ISOLDE, radioactive nuclides are produced in thick high-temperature targets via spallation, fission or fragmentation reactions. The
targets are placed in the external proton beam of the PSB, which has an energy of 1 or 1.4 GeV and an intensity of about 2 microA. The
target and ion-source together represent a small chemical factory for converting the nuclear reaction products into a radioactive ion
beam. An electric field accelerates the ions, which are mass separated and steered to the experiments. Until now more than 600
isotopes of more than 60 elements (Z= 2 to 88) have been produced with half-lives down to milliseconds and intensities up to 10E11 ions
per second.
Physics at ISOLDE is pursued in several directions. The large variety of available species allows the systematic study of atomic and
nuclear properties and exotic decays far from the line of stability. The results obtained have implications for the basic understanding
of the atomic nucleus, but also for related fields like astrophysics and weak-interaction physics. The possibility of pure radioactive
implants opens acess, to the investigation of problems in solid-state physics, in particular concerning impurities and defects in
semiconductors. Bio-medical studies using radioactive isotopes for diagnosis and therapy have introduced life-science into the research
programme.
Organiser(s): HR-RFA
Organiser(s): HR-RFA