Total efficiency of an isotope-separator-on-line production system based on an electron cyclotron resonance ion source associated with a carbon target: The case of SPIRAL 1
Résumé
An original approach to the time behavior of an isotope-separator-on-line production system is proposed in the case of a production system where the target and the ion source are connected through a conductance much larger than that of the exit hole of the source. One major goal of this article is to derive the analytical expression of the response time of the system for noble gases from statistical parameters only, which can be deduced from a few simple measurements. The validity limits of the expression of the total efficiency are given, and the calculations are compared to the results obtained at GANIL during operation of SPIRAL 1, using a carbon target close coupled to a multicharged electron cyclotron resonance ion source. The final analytical expression for the total efficiency shows that the usual product of diffusion efficiency, effusion efficiency, and ionization efficiency cannot be applied in our case. We show how it is possible to predict the atom-to-ion transformation efficiency for radioactive isotopes of noble gas using response times measured for stable isotopes.