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Updated: Apr 28, 2026

Preparing an Isotopically Pure 229Th Ion Beam for Studies of 229mTh
Published on: May 3, 2019
Metal vapor target for precise studies of ion-atom collisions
W Chen1, G Vorobyev1, D Guo2
1GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
Abstract:
Although different ion-atom collisions have been studied in various contexts, precise values of cross-sections for many atomic processes were seldom obtained. One of the main uncertainties originates from the value of target densities. In this paper, we describe a unique method to measure a target density precisely with a combination of physical vapor deposition and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. This method is preliminarily applied to a charge transfer cross-section measurement in collisions between highly charged ions and magnesium vapor. The final relative uncertainty of the target density is less than 2.5%. This enables the precise studies of atomic processes in ion-atom collisions, even though in the trial test the deduction of precise capture cross-sections was limited by other systematic errors.
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