Collinear resonance ionisation spectroscopy (CRIS) combines ionisation spectroscopy with a collinear geometry to provide Doppler-free measurements of atomic hyperfine structure, used to determine changes in root mean square charge radii, nuclear ground state spins and nuclear ground state electromagnetic moments. In the technique, an atomic beam is collinearly overlapped with multiple laser...
Gas catchers are widely used to slow down nuclear reaction products and extract them for precision measurements. However, it is known that impurities in the inert stopping gas can chemically react with the ions and thus influence the extraction efficiency. So far, chemical reactions in the gas catcher have not been investigated in details. We want to understand the chemistry inside the...
Hyperfine structures and isotope shifts in electronic transitions contain readily available model-free information on the single-particle and bulk properties of exotic nuclei, namely the nuclear spin, magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments as well as changes in root-mean-square charge radii [1]. Recently, resonance ionization spectroscopy (RIS) in a low-temperature supersonic gas jet...
The properties of nuclei near the neutron $N=126$ shell, in particular their atomic masses, are critical to the understanding of the production of elements via the astrophysical r-process pathway [1]. Unfortunately, such nuclei cannot be produced in sufficient quantities using common particle-fragmentation, target-fragmentation, or fission production techniques. However, multi-nucleon transfer...
The CANadian Rare isotope facility with Electron Beam ion source (CANREB) will aid in the delivery of pure, intense rare isotope beams (RIBs) from ISAC and ARIEL to further the nuclear science research programs at TRIUMF. CANREB will include a high resolution magnetic spectrometer (HRS) for beam purification, and a charge breeding system consisting of an ion beam cooler and buncher (BCB), a...
Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) has become a routine instrument for elemental/isotopic analysis. PNNL has made simple modifications to such instruments to collect single or multiple isotopes. Commercial instruments are now widely available and the latest benchtop systems offer high level isotope isolation performance >99.999%. While mass selected ion currents are still...
A multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer (MR-TOF) will be a critical component for quickly removing radioactive contaminants produced at the future "N = 126 beam factory" addition to ATLAS at Argonne National Laboratory. This unique thermalized ion beam facility will employ deep-inelastic reactions to produce very neutron-rich isotopes relevant to the astrophysical r-process. This...
At the SPIRAL2 facility (GANIL) the LEB-REGLIS3 set-up [1] is being developed and will allow to perform laser spectroscopy studies of rare, unstable nuclei using the “In Gas Laser Ionization and Spectroscopy” (IGLIS) technique [2,3]. After separation with the S3-spectrometer, the fusion-evaporation reaction products are thermalized in a buffer gas cell, transported towards a de Laval type...
The Resonance Ionization Laser Ion Source (RILIS) relies on a versatile, reliable and easy to use laser system to enable selective and efficient multi-step resonance photo-ionization of radioisotopes, for the majority of experiments at CERN-ISOLDE. A set of titanium sapphire (Ti:Sa) lasers complements the dye laser system of the ISOLDE RILIS installation [1], providing convenient access to the...
The precise masses of neutron-rich nuclei are important for the study of the r-process nucleosynthesis as well as nuclear structure far from stability. The newly constructed storage ring, Rare-RI Ring, is a device dedicated for the precise mass measurements for short-lived nuclei [1][2]. The masses are determined by comparing the revolution time of a reference particle with known mass and that...
Laser spectroscopy and ionization are already well established tools for the analysis or production of radioactive ion beams. However, to best suit the needs of specific applications, new or modified laser systems are required. We present our recent progress and several applications of these new systems.
Two-photon transitions require high pulse energy and short pulse duration for efficient...
Significant improvements have been made to the Collinear Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy (CRIS) experiment at CERN-ISOLDE in recent years.
A versatile ion source setup has been developed to support the range of ionization properties of the elements under investigation at CRIS. This has required combining surface, plasma and laser ablation sources with compatible ion optics and has allowed...
The initial phase of the SHE-Mass project -- precision mass measurements of superheavy nuclei with a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrograph (MRTOF-MS) coupled with the gas-filled recoil ion separator GARIS-II -- has successfully been carried out. In a series of the experiments, masses of a wide variety of heavy/superheavy nuclei have been measured [1,2,3]. In particular, masses of...
NSCL is a national user facility with a mission to provide beams of rare isotopes for researchers from around the world. Presently, a rare-isotope beam can only be delivered to one experimental end station. The Helium-Jet Ion Guide System (HJ-IGS) project is aimed at delivering a second radioactive ion beam to another end station by collecting rare isotopes that are not delivered to the...
Within the framework of MEDICIS-Promed, possibilities for hadron therapy with radioactive ion beams are investigated. For preparation of a radioactive $^{11}$C treatment beam, the use of an ISOL-production stage followed by a charge breeding system is considered. In order to better understand the limitations of the charge breeding system, we have performed tests with stable high-intensity CO...
A contamination free isotope beam is one of the key requirements for the success of many
experiments located at radioactive ion beam facilities. Resonant ionization laser ion sources
(RILIS), which rely on the unique optical spectrum for each element, are well known for their
ability to provide radioactive ion beams with reduced isobaric background. However, even
though the optical...
TRIUMF is developing two target assemblies for radioisotope production based on the conversion of primary charged particle beams into neutral particle fluxes, which consequently induce fission in a uranium carbide (UCx) target.
One is a proton-to-neutron converter made out of a 2 cm thick tungsten core clamped by copper brackets to dissipate up to 7.5 kW deposited by a 500 MeV, 100 uA proton...
The application of mass-separators for the production of high-purity radionuclides used for diagnostics and therapy is a promising and extensively developed method. Among the most widely used medical radionuclides are isotopes with relatively low ionization potential, for example, isotope-generator 82Sr which is utilized for PET diagnostics of heart and brain diseases, alpha-ecaying 223,224Ra...
ISOLDE is a radioactive ion beam facility within CERN’s proton accelerator complex. Ion beams of more than 70 different elements can be produced using a selected combination of ion source types and target materials available. In 2017 a total of 36 target and ion source units (targets) were constructed, tested and irradiated at ISOLDE for scheduled physics experiments, used for the...
TRIUMF’s flagship is the Advanced Rare IsotopE Laboratory (ARIEL), which will operate the existing ISOL facility, ISAC, to increase the number of shifts available to experimental users by a factor of three. In order to not only deliver more experimental hours but also better beams, a dedicated research and development program is required. There is scope for significant improvements to the...
The new CERN-MEDICIS facility aims for production of medical radioisotopes. It is foreseen to use two production routes. The first one implies the use of the 1.4 GeV proton beam coming from the CERN Proton Booster for irradiation of a target material with subsequent radionuclide extraction at the dedicated off-line MEDICIS Mass Separator. However, during short and long shutdowns, this...
Promethium (Z = 61) is an exclusively radioactive element with short half-lives of up to 17 years. Consequently, Pm sample amounts that can be safely handled in off-line laboratories are small and data on atomic transitions is scarce.
In order to access Pm for RIB facilities, extensive laser ionization scheme development was carried out at JGU Mainz. More than 1000 new optical transitions...
Spectroscopic studies to develop laser ionization schemes suitable for titanium:sapphire (Ti:Sa) lasers were carried out in Tm. While efficient ionization schemes exist for dye laser based RILIS, development is needed for Ti:Sa laser based RILIS. The spectroscopic studies were performed at TRIUMF’s off-line laser ion source test stand with a system of tunable Ti:Sa lasers with the focus on...
The multi-reflection time-of-flight mass separator/spectrometer (MR-ToF MS) [1, 2] installed at the ISOLTRAP experiment [3] at ISOLDE at CERN has proven to be a valuable asset, allowing fast identification of the incoming ion beams [4] and selection and transfer of only a certain species to either the Penning-trap section [5], or to other experimental components [6]. The time-of-flight...
After 4 years of upgrade, the SPIRAL1 (Système de Production d’Ions Radioactifs Accélérés en Ligne) facility situated at GANIL (Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds) is again on-line. Its capabilities of hosting target ion-source systems using other ionization techniques than electron cyclotron resonance allows the extension of the production of radioactive ion beams (RIBs) to sticky...
The MOLAS project (Molybdenum production with Laser technique at SPES) calls for the production of 99Mo radioactive ions by means of the method that has being employed for the generation of ion beams studied in nuclear physics experiments.
The hypothetical system includes a commercial cyclotron with energy in the range 10 MeV to 20 MeV and a production target.
The target is a Molybdenum disk...
The Selective Production of Exotic Species (SPES) is a nuclear facility currently under construction at the National Laboratories of Legnaro (LNL) of the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), aiming at the production of Radioactive Ion Beams.
In the first SPES production phase, low energy and low intensity ion beams are planned to be produced using different targets. A continuous proton...
The ARIEL facility, currently under construction at TRIUMF, brings two new target stations and a new electron driver beam from ARIEL's e-linac to the TRIUMF facility. With these upgrades comes a suite of new technologies and new methodologies specific to the challenges posed by the ARIEL target station design. Several offline test stands, becoming increasingly integrated as the tests progress,...
The MARA low-energy branch (MARA-LEB) [1,2] is a novel facility currently under development at the University of Jyväskylä. Its main focus will be the study of ground-state properties of exotic proton-rich nuclei employing in-gas-cell and in-gas-jet resonance ionisation spectroscopy, and mass measurements of nuclei at the N=Z line of particular interest to the astrophysical rp...
In a multistep photoexcitation process, the excitation efficiency from the ground state to a final state depends on the polarization of the excitation photons, the angular momentum of the intermediate state and of the final state. Most experimental work on the polarization dependence in resonance ionization has been performed in atomic beams, where polarization relaxation due to collisional...
In the perspective of the LNS-INFN plan that provides to increase the ion beam power delivered by the existing superconducting cyclotron up to 10 kW, a new FRAgment In-flight SEparator (FRAISE) has been proposed. Due to the constraint of the experimental hall and despite an increasing of the thickness of the shielding walls we expect to run the facility with power no higher than 3 kW. The mass...
ERIS (Electron-beam-driven RI separator for SCRIT) [1] at the SCRIT (Self-Confined Radioactive isotope Ion Target) electron scattering facility [2] is an online isotope separator system to produce low energy radioactive isotope (RI) beams, used for electron scattering experiments of short-lived unstable nuclei. ERIS consists of a production target, a forced electron beam induced arc discharge...
A raster magnet was installed to rotate the 500 MeV proton beam onto the TRIUMF ISAC target. Rotating the proton beam produces a more uniform average power deposition, which increases the amount of beam power that targets can take. The magnet system is a pair of two ferrite AC magnets which rotates the proton beam at a frequency up to 400 Hz, for various deflection angles. A new tune was...
The unrivaled combination of efficiency and selectivity of the resonance-ionization process has made laser ion sources a mainstay of Isotope Separator On-Line (ISOL) facilities. The growing demand for laser-ionized beams has necessitated the use of increasingly robust laser systems, which are capable of operating continuously, and possess a long mean time between failures.
Such stringent...
Collinear laser spectroscopy (CLS) is a very effective tool to measure nuclear spins, magnetic moments, quadrupole moments and mean-square charge radii of short-lived isotopes far from stability with high precision and accuracy [1]. Conventional CLS relies on the optical detection of fluorescence photons from laser-excited ions or atoms. Depending on the specific case and spectroscopic...
The standard model of physics provides a description of matter in the universe. However, it fails to reproduce many unexplained features and so there has been search for physics beyond the standard model. One avenue is via the precise determination of the V$_{ud}$ matrix element of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskaka (CKM) matrix from the ft-value of superallowed mixed beta-decay transitions. A...
Neutron-rich fission fragments are currently of great interest for the physics community. These neutron-rich fission fragments are readily available at CERN-ISOLDE using the ISOL (Isotope Separator OnLine) method. However, if produced by direct irradiation (1.4 GeV protons) of uranium carbide (UCx) targets, commonly used at ISOLDE, the desired isotopes come with very high isobaric...
Offline-2 is an entirely new laboratory for the Isolde facility, to serve a wide range of R&D needs. Whilst the existing off-line lab is sufficient for target conditioning and for limited ion-source developments, it is now rather old and not always suitable for testing and development of more sophisticated target units. In addition there is an increasing need for beam dynamics studies, which...
Developed more than 10 years ago, the ISOLDE yield database [1] serves as a valuable source for experiment planning. At the moment, it contains in total 2445 yield entries for 1333 isotopes of 74 elements and 55 different target materials. In addition, information about the time structure of the release is available for 427 yields [2].
With the increasing demand for more and more exotic...
The Gothenburg ANion Detector for Affinity measurements by Laser PHotodetachment (GANDALPH) has been designed to determine electron affinities (EA) of radioisotopes. A first goal is the determination of the EA of astatine, the rarest naturally occurring element on earth [1]. The EA of astatine, together with the previously measured first ionization potential (IP) [2] gives valuable benchmarks...
The increasing interest of using ferroic and multiferroic materials in high-tech applications requires that the underlying physical phenomena are studied on an atomic scale. Time-differential perturbed correlation (TDPAC) measurements have a local character and can provide important information concerning combined magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole interactions in ferroic and multiferroic...
CYCIAE-100, a 100 MeV high current compact cyclotron has been constructed and first beams were extracted in 2014. The machine has 7 beam lines for multi-application purposes. N1, one of the beam lines, is designed for high current beam transportation, beam dump tests and isotope production. In 2016, a mA proton beam was tested on the internal target. In 2017, 200 micro-ampere proton beam was...
