Design and commissioning of an ion guide system for In-Gas Laser Ionization and Spectroscopy experiments

Abstract Radio-frequency (RF) ionguides, also known as Linear Paul Traps, are powerful devices to efficiently transport ionbeams from high to low pressure regions while keeping good ionoptical properties. A set of ionguides comprising three different RF quadrupole (RFQ) structures has been designed using ion-trajectory simulations to improve the performance of the In- Gas LaserIonizations and Spectroscopy (IGLIS) technique currently under development at KU Leuven. Results of the commissioning tests for the total transport efficiency and transient time through the ionguides as well as the longitudinal energy spread and transverse emittance are found to be in agreement with iontrajectory simulations considering a realistic ion-atom interaction potential.