Heavy ion pulses in the picosecond range

Abstract

High mass resolution time of flight experiments with heavy ions can be performed by a rebuncher cavity operating at 108.48MHz. A normal conducting spiral resonator has been used to bunch 96MeV 32S ions. Operation with an injected dc-beam yielded pulse widths of ΔtFWHM = 70 ps. When phase locking the rebuncher to the nanosecond beam pulsing system of the MP-Tandem pulses in the range of 170ps were obtained. The pulse spacing is 147.5ns with a pulse to background ratio of 105. The Δ t/T values achieved allow a mass resolution of ΔA < 1 even at heaviest reaction products with small flight paths. Avoiding the disadvantages of start detectors it is possible to measure reaction products at low energy and at small angles