Oxide fiber targets at ISOLDE

Many elements are rapidly released from oxide matrices. Some oxide powder targets show a fast sintering, thus losing their favorable release characteristics. Loosely packed oxide fiber targets are less critical since they may maintain their open structure even when starting to fuse together at some contact points. The experience with various oxide fiber targets (titania, zirconia, ceria and thoria) used in the last years at ISOLDE is reviewed. For short-lived isotopes of Cu, Ga and Xe the zirconia and ceria targets respectively provided significantly higher yields than any other target (metal foils, oxide powders, etc.) tested before. Titania fibers, which were not commercially available, were produced in a relic process by impregnation of a rayon felt in a titanium chloride solution and subsequent calcination by heating the dried felt in air. Thoria fibers were obtained either by the same process or by burning commercial gas lantern mantle cloth. In the future a beryllia fiber target could be used to produce very intense 6He beams (order of 1013 ions per second) via the 9Be(n,α) reaction using spallation neutrons