A simple and effective stabilization system for collinear laser ion-beam spectroscopy at mass separators

Abstract In principle, Collinear Laser Ion-Beam Spectroscopy (CLIBS) needs very efficient stabilization of the laser frequency ν and the ion energy U to obtain high resolution. The requirements on the stabilization of ν and particularly on U are reduced by a differential measuring technique, using a second beam of stable isotopes as a reference. The ions are kept in resonance with ν by monitoring the fluorescence light. The stabilization may act on the ion energy by a post-acceleration system or on ν. The time constant (1 to 0.05 s) depends on the intensity of the reference beam. Instabilities of ν and U with longer time constants do not affect the measurements. As a main advantage this technique is independent of the separator regime and avoids a highly sophisticated stabilization of U . Therefore, we could use our system unaltered at two different mass separators.