Characterization of the new hybrid low-energy accelerator facility in Mexico

Abstract

In 2013, a new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) facility was inaugurated in Mexico. Since then a substantial number of precise measurements of low concentrations of radioactive isotopes (14C, 10Be, 26Al and Pu) have been made. This paper describes the extension to the isotope separator installed at the end of 2017. It takes advantage of the 1MV High Voltage Engineering Europa (HVEE) tandem accelerator with the multicathode ion source (MCIS) and the fine-tuned injection system which delivers low-energy beams into a multipurpose scattering chamber. The MCIS allows for a quick and smooth change of the ion species to be accelerated. The ability to automatically tune all the optics in the injection system produces an accelerator laboratory that can change the beam species, intensities and energies in a few seconds. The careful and detailed study of the high-energy analyzing magnet using well-known proton resonances in 12C and 28Si, allowed for a calibration of the terminal voltage and beam energy. Stable ion beams with energies as low as 300 keV and as high as 8 MeV, from H to Fe, and with intensities in the range 109-1015 particles per second, were produced as listed.