RF deflecting cavity for fast radioactive ion beams

Abstract The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) will be a new scientific user facility that produces rare-isotope beams for experiments from the fragmentation of heavy ions at energies of 100–200 MeV/u. During the projectile fragmentation, the rare isotope of interest is produced along with many contaminants that need to be removed before the beam reaches detectors. At FRIB, this is accomplished with a magnetic projectile fragment separator. However, to achieve higher beam purity, in particular for proton-rich rare isotopes, additional purification is necessary. RadiaBeam in collaboration with Michigan State University (MSU) has designed a 20.125 MHz radiofrequency (RF) fragment separator capable of producing a 4 MV kick with 18 cm aperture in order to remove contaminant isotopes based on their time of flight. In this paper, we will discuss the RF and engineering design considerations of this separator cavity.