An advanced ISOL facility based on ATLAS

The Argonne concept for an accelerator complex for efficiently producing high-quality radioactive beams from ion source energy up to 6-15 MeV/u is described. The Isotope-Separator-On-Line (ISOL) method is used. A high-power driver accelerator produces radionuclides in a target that is closely coupled to an ion source and mass separator. By using a driver accelerator which can deliver a variety of beams and energies the radionuclide production mechanisms can be chosen to optimize yields for the species of interest. To effectively utilize the high beam power of the driver two-step target/ion source geometries are proposed: (1) Neutron production with intermediate energy deuterons on a primary target to produce neutron-rich fission products in a secondary 238U target, and (2) Fragmentation of neutron-rich heavy ion beams such as 18O in a target/catcher geometry. Heavy ion beams with total energies in the 1-10 GeV range are also available for radionuclide production via high-energy spallation reactions. At the present time R and D is in progress to develop superconducting resonator structures for a driver linac to cover the energy range up to 100 MeV per nucleon for heavy ions and 200 MeV for protons. The post accelerator scheme is based on using existing ISOL-type 1+ ion source technology followed by CW Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) accelerators and superconducting linacs including the present ATLAS accelerator. A full-scale prototype of the first-stage RFQ has been successfully tested with RF at full design voltage and tests with ion beams are in progress. A benchmark beam, 132Sn at 7 MeV/u, requires two stripping stages, one a gas stripper at very low velocity after the first RFQ section, and one a foil stripper at higher velocity after a superconducting-linac injector