Stacked-ring ion guide for cooling and bunching rare isotopes

X. Chen*, J. Even, M. Schlaich, T. Schlathölter, L. Schweikhard, A. Soylu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
133 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In modern rare isotope facilities, ion cooling and bunching lies at the heart of the ion transfer along a low-energy beam line that consists of several differential pumping stages. We present a conceptual design of an ion guide as an alternative to the conventional linear Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) for cooling and bunching rare isotopes. The ion guide is composed of stacked ring electrodes of varying apertures, to which a confining RF potential following a rectangular waveform is applied. The thicknesses of the rings and the gaps in between are varied accordingly to maximize the confining volume and to reduce ion losses. Ion transport within the ion guide is facilitated by a lower-frequency wave traveling on top of the higher-frequency confining field. The former is induced by locally adjusting the duty cycle of the rectangular waveform of the confining potential. Design parameters are first calculated by analytical studies and then optimized by ion trajectory simulations with SIMION®. The results show that the ion guide enables high ion transmission and produces well focused ion bunches. It will be used in the NEXT project—an experimental study of atomic masses of Neutron-rich EXotic nuclei produced in multi-nucleon Transfer reactions.
Original languageEnglish
Article number116856
Number of pages11
JournalInternational Journal of Mass Spectrometry
Volume477
Early online date18-Apr-2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul-2022

Keywords

  • Ion cooling and bunching
  • Stacked-ring ion guide
  • Traveling-wave-assisted ion transport
  • Digital ion trap
  • RF-Only ion trap
  • NEXT

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