An RF-only ion-funnel for extraction from high-pressure gases

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel RF ion-funnel technique capable of extracting ions from high-pressure noble gases into vacuum, demonstrated with Ba ions from xenon and argon, with potential applications in particle physics and trace element recovery.

Contribution

The development and experimental validation of an RF-only ion-funnel for extracting ions from high-pressure gases into vacuum, including the first extraction of ions from high-pressure xenon and argon gases.

Findings

Successful extraction of Ba ions from high-pressure xenon and argon gases.

Experimental results align well with detailed simulations.

Potential applications in double beta decay detection and trace ion recovery.

Abstract

An RF ion-funnel technique has been developed to extract ions from a high-pressure (10 bar) noble-gas environment into vacuum ($10^{-6}$ mbar). Detailed simulations have been performed and a prototype has been developed for the purpose of extracting $^{136}$Ba ions from Xe gas with high efficiency. With this prototype, ions have been extracted for the first time from high-pressure xenon gas and argon gas. Systematic studies have been carried out and compared to the simulations. This demonstration of extraction of ions with mass comparable to that of the gas generating the high-pressure into vacuum has applications to Ba tagging from a Xe-gas time-projection chamber (TPC) for double beta decay as well as to the general problem of recovering trace amounts of an ionized element in a heavy (m$>40$ u) carrier gas.