LBNL, Berkeley, California, USA
The capabilities of the K140 88-Inch Cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have been extensively enhanced through generations of electron cyclotron resonance ion sources (ECRISs). The cyclotron has evolved from a light-ion accelerator into a proton to uranium accelerator and has accelerated ultra-high charge state heavy ions, such as xenon and uranium. Recently, with 124Xe49+ ions injected from VENUS (a 3rd generation ECR ion source) the 88-Inch Cyclotron reached a new record of ~ 2.6 GeV.* This is an energy increase of about fifteen-fold over what this K140 cyclotron could achieve when it started operation almost six decades ago. A 4th generation ECR ion source, MARS-D, is under development and will further raise the output energy of the cyclotron. With the higher ion charge states produced that are anticipated with a new ECR ion source, the 88-Inch Cyclotron ought to be able to accelerate ion beams of energies of 3 GeV and higher for the radiation effects testing community. This paper will present and discuss the development of the MARS-D ECR ion source and the 88-Inch Cyclotron’s recent and possible future achievements.
*: D. Z. Xie, W. Lu, J. Y. Benitez, M. J. Regis, Recent Production of Ultra-High Charge State Ion Beams with VENUS, Proc. of the 23rd Int’l Workshop on ECR Ion Sources, Catania, Italy, Sept, 2018.
