Acceleration of atomic clusters by the 1MV Tandetron accelerator

Atomic clusters of Bn, Cn, Aln, Sin and Cun have been accelerated by means of the 1MV Tandetron accelerator at University of Tsukuba. The negative cluster ions are generated by a cesium sputtering ion source and extracted by the energy of 20 keV. The charge exchange from negative to single positive cluster ion is achieved by collision with Ar in a gas cell at the high voltage terminal. It is necessary to accelerate cluster ions as the same energy ratio (MeV/atom) for the interaction experiment between cluster ions and the target. The terminal voltage of the 1MV Tandetron accelerator is possible to be varied from 0.1 to 1.0MV. We select the accelerating energy to 0.24 MeV/atom for small cluster ions (n≤8). Experimental results obtained with accelerating Cn cluster ions are reported. (author)