Developing laser ablation in an electron cyclotron resonance ion source for actinide detection with AMS

A laser ablation material injection system has been developed at the ATLAS electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source for use in accelerator mass spectrometry experiments. Beam production with laser ablation initially suffered from instabilities due to fluctuations in laser energy and cratering on the sample surface by the laser. However, these instabilities were rectified by applying feedback correction for the laser energy and rastering the laser across the sample surface. An initial experiment successfully produced and accelerated low intensity actinide beams with up to 1000 counts per second. With continued development, laser ablation shows promise as an alternative material injection scheme for ECR ion sources and may help substantially reduce cross talk in the source.