Commissioning of a multi-purpose offline ion source at the TITAN experiment

Abstract The controlled focusing and transport of ion beams is of paramount importance in particle accelerators, high energy beamlines, and detector systems, as it determines the sensitivity and resolution of the instruments. Therefore, it is essential to model the beam dynamics before the commissioning of new instruments in order to optimise properties such as transmission and energy spread. In this paper, a commercial Plasma Ion Source (PIS), comprised of a heated filament and anode followed by its collimating optics, was modelled using Monte Carlo simulations run with the commercial software SIMION. The simulations were performed for the integration of the source within the existing ion transport optics of TRIUMF’s Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear science (TITAN). Optimising the voltage configurations using these simulations proved successful in the commissioning of the PIS operated in surface ionisation mode at the TITAN experiment. A Time-of-Flight (TOF) mass spectroscopy method was developed which allowed for the identification of species ionised by the source. The integration of a flexible ion source into the TITAN experiment will open up new opportunities to perform Isotopic Ratios Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) measurements at TITAN.