LIGISOL: The Leuven ion guide isotope separator on-line

The development of new ion-guide facility for mass separation operating on-line with a heavy-ion accelerator is described. Different aspects related to the ionisation principle for reaction products with high recoil energies are discussed. It is proven that this ion-guide technique can be developed further to become one of the most general separation techniques, independent from physical (half-life, recoil energy, ...) or chemical (refractoriness, ...) characteristics. (orig.)