ISAC time-of-flight system with laser-based calibration

摘要

The time-of-flight (TOF) system is available at the ISAC rare isotope facility to measure the energy of stable and radioactive ion beams in the range of 0.5-22 Mev/u. The system, comprised of three secondary electron emission based monitors, is operated with practically all available beam intensities starting from as low as 10~3 ions per second. Recently the system was equipped with the calibration setup based on a 266 nm ultraviolet laser. Laser light interacting with the TOF monitors generates secondary electrons due to the photoelectric effect and acts as a reference beam traveling at a well- known velocity. After calibration, accuracy of energy measurements improved to be better than 0.1%.