Physics at the Electron Beam Ion Trap

Abstract

Two Electron Beam Ion Traps (EBIT), the low energy EBIT II (40 keV electron beam energy) and the high-energy Super EBIT (200 keV electron beam energy) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory produce the highest charge state ions of any element (up to U92+). An EBIT confines target ions within a compressed electron beam and it can be operated as a trap or a source for highly charged ions. This provides the opportunity for advances in areas such as the precision spectroscopy of heavy ions with few electrons, the investigation of unusual states of matter such as Coulomb crystals and collision studies at low energies. Furthermore, ion/matter interaction can be studied in a hitherto inaccessible regime since in highly charged ions the potential energy can reach several hundreds of keV, exceeding the kinetic energy of the ions by far. In this contribution, the facilities are briefly described, and recently completed experiments in the areas of spectroscopy, ion-solid interactions and the trapping of highly charged ions are presented.