Collision-Induced Dissociation at TRIUMF's Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear science

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first use of Collision-Induced Dissociation at TRIUMF's ion trap to significantly reduce molecular contamination, enhancing the purity of radioactive ion beams for high-precision mass spectrometry.

Contribution

It introduces CID at an ISOL-type radioactive ion beam facility, showing its effectiveness in reducing molecular contaminants by up to tenfold.

Findings

Molecular contamination can be reduced up to ten times.

CID improves the purity of radioactive ion beams.

First demonstration of CID at an ISOL-type facility.

Abstract

The performance of high-precision mass spectrometry of radioactive isotopes can often be hindered by large amounts of contamination, including molecular species, stemming from the production of the radioactive beam. In this paper, we report on the development of Collision-Induced Dissociation (CID) as a means of background reduction for experiments at TRIUMF's Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear science (TITAN). This study was conducted to characterize the quality and purity of radioactive ion beams and the reduction of molecular contaminants to allow for mass measurements of radioactive isotopes to be done further from nuclear stability. This is the first demonstration of CID at an ISOL-type radioactive ion beam facility, and it is shown that molecular contamination can be reduced up to an order of magnitude.