ECR ion sources and rare isotope beams at Louvain-la-Neuve

Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion sources are used in a variety of applications. A lot of them are put to work to ionize abundant isotopes at high intensity and/or high charge states. But another important field for these kinds of sources is also to ionize, with high efficiency, isotopes which are available only in very small quantities, e.g., radioactive isotopes or stable isotopes with very small abundances. At Louvain-la-Neuve a range of different “exotic” beams are accelerated using two types of ECR ion sources. Each element requires the use of some unique method in preparing, operating, or tuning the source. Examples of the use of ECR sources for gaseous exotic isotope ionization include: the production of low charge state $Ar37$ $(t1/2=35 days)$ and $O17$ (natural abundance 0.038%) for implantation purposes and short-lived $He6$ $(t1/2=0.8 s)$ for postacceleration. The sputtering method has been used for the production of $Ni64$ beams (0.91% natural abundance) and $He7$ beams $(t1/2=53 days).$ Some aspects of the tuning, preparation, and performance of the ECR sources and the configuration and preparation of the sputtering apparatus will be discussed.