Metallic ion production with electron cyclotron resonance ion source Caprice

In cooperation with CEN‐Grenoble we developed a high temperature oven for the production of beams from rare and expensive nickel isotopes (62Ni and 64Ni) with an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source Caprice‐14 GHz. For the first time, nickel has been produced in this way. For an experiment at the Unilac we have provided a stable Ni9+ beam for 40 days with a mean intensity of 25 eμA. The nickel consumption was a few mg per hour and ten ovens have been used for that period. Surprising and promising results were obtained with this oven for the production of uranium beams by using UO2 samples. These results are compared with the ‘‘plasma heating’’ method. Complementary investigations about the already studied ‘‘sputtering’’ method are also presented.