Radioactive beams from 252Cf fission using a gas catcher and an ECR charge breeder at ATLAS

Abstract The Californium Rare Ion Breeder Upgrade (CARIBU) for the ATLAS facility is under construction. The facility will use 252 Cf fission fragments thermalized and collected into a low-energy particle beam by a helium gas catcher. In order to reaccelerate these beams an existing ATLAS ECR ion source is being reconfigured as a charge breeder source. A 1Ci 252 Cf source will provide sufficient yield to deliver beams of up to ∼10 6 far-from-stability ions per second on target. The facility design, expected performance and the project status will be presented in this paper.