Applications of high-energy heavy-ions from superconducting cyclotrons

摘要

The superconducting cyclotrons of the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), a major nuclear physics facility, can provide ions of any element from hydrogen to uranium. A major upgrade to the NSCL is underway and will consist of an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source follwed by two large superconducting cyclotrons (K500 and K1200). Ions can be extracted at any point along this chain allowing a large range of energies and charge states. The ion energies range from a new keV to over 20 GeV, and charge states up to fully stripped ~(197)Au~(79+) and two electron ~(238)U~(90+) are possible. The ong range of the high-energy heavy-ions allows them to penetrate deeply into a target that is placed in air, outside a vacuum chamber. The ion beams have already been used for a number of applications including; ion implantation, atomic physics, single event effects in integrated cricuits, DNA radiation studies, radiation detector studies, flux pinning in high-T_c superconductors, calibration of a spece-based spectrometer, isotopic ratio measurements, material wear studies, and continuous positorn emission tomography imaging.