The LEBIT ion cooler and buncher

Abstract This paper presents a detailed description of the ion cooler and buncher, installed at the Low Energy Beam and Ion Trap Facility (LEBIT) at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL). NSCL uses gas stopping to provide rare isotopes from projectile fragmentation for its low-energy physics program and to the re-accelerator ReA. The LEBIT ion buncher converts the continuous rare-isotope beam, delivered from the gas stopping cell, into short, low-emittance ion pulses, required for high-precision mass measurements with a 9.4 T Penning trap mass spectrometer. Operation at cryogenic temperatures, a simplified electrode structure and dedicated rugged electronics contribute to the high performance and reliability of the device, which have been essential to the successful LEBIT physics program since 2005.