Charge state breeding with an ECRIS for ISAC at TRIUMF

For the acceleration of radioactive ions the usable mass range is limited by the A/q acceptance of the first accelerator stage. Since an efficient primary ion source normally produces singly charged ions, charge state breeding is necessary if higher masses are to be accelerated. At TRIUMF an ECR source has been chosen as a breeder due to its potential high efficiency in producing inter-mediate A/q values. To minimize the necessity for further stripping an A/q around 6 is desirable. A 14 GHz "PHOENIX" booster from Pantechnik has been set up on a test bench. The singly charged ions are produced from different ion sources, which can be mounted in a standard ISAC target-ion-source set-up. For the first tests an ECR source to produce noble gas beams has been chosen. The aim of the measurements at the test bench is to find the optimum operation conditions of the charge state booster and the injection and extraction ion optics. Working with radioactive ions always means that the system should aim for high efficiency, as the production of such species is limited. Therefore, special emphasis has to be put on the highest yield for the production of the desired charge state. A second point is the analysis of the extracted beam quality in order to optimize mass separation and transport efficiency. The paper shows the status of the set-up and reports on first results of the charge breeding of Ar, Ne and Xe. With Xe a total efficiency of 22.5 % has been achieved.