Principles of unattended operation of isotope separators

In order to achieve optimal performance from a separator, namely product purity and throughput, its essential parameters must be carefully adjusted and their values maintained constant for the duration of the entire run. For production runs lasting hundreds of hours, it is highly desirable to be able to leave the separator unattended while appropriate feedback circuits maintain its parameters at their initial values as set by the operator. These parameters include not only the beam current and detailed ion source characteristics, but also the image position in the lateral and longitudinal directions. Such round-the-clock automatic operation, besides considerably reducing productions costs, also significantly improves the product purity and yield, and extends cathode lifetime. The principles underlying the implementation of this procedure and the Soreq separator MEIRA are explained and the results obtained reported. (orig.)