Contact : F. Le Blanc francois.leblanc@ijclab.in2p3.fr
The laser ion source at ALTO aims to produce pure ion beams using the resonance ionization technique (RIS). RIS can provide a very ecient and highly selective way to ionize the exotic atoms using a multi-step laser excitation process.
The laser room located above the PARRNe mass separator is equipped with two high power Nd:YAG operating at 10 kHz and pumping three (540-850 nm) dye lasers, two from Radiant Dyes and one from Lioptec, with their BBO doubling units (270-425 nm) to achieve two and three-step ionization schemes.
To test ionization schemes for different elements, an o-line test bench is available at RIALTO, equipped with an atomic beam unit (ABU), used to determinate optimal operational parameters for on-line operation with radioactive beam. This unit allows to tune the different laser wavelengths by measuring the current of the ions of interest obtained by the interaction of lasers and an atomic beam.
