Low charge state lithium beam production from chemical compounds with laser ion source

In recent years, the primary ion source for the Brookhaven National Laboratory has been the laser ion source, which provides many types of ions within a short switching time of several seconds. The task is difficult for other ion sources. In the previous work, we tested metallic lithium as a target material of the laser irradiation. Although an intense lithium beam was demonstrated, some operational difficulties were observed due to its reactiveness to oxygen. For accelerator applications, a more robust and reliable target material has been demanded. For this purpose, we tested lithium niobate, LiNbO₃. Our study investigated the optimization of power density to produce low charge state lithium ions. We struck LiNbO₃ with the laser and found lithium ion quantities for five different power densities. Based on the data obtained, we can conclude that the most efficient production of Li¹⁺ occurs when the laser power density is 5 × 10⁸ W/cm².