In the context of research on simultaneous heavy ion radiotherapy and radiography, a mixed carbon/helium ion beam has been successfully established and investigated at GSI for the first time to serve fundamental experiments on this new mode of image guidance. A beam with an adjustable ratio of 12C3+/4He+ was provided by the 14.5 GHz Caprice ECR ion source for subsequent acceleration in the linear accelerator UNILAC and the synchrotron SIS18. Despite the mass difference between the 4He+ and 12C3+ ions, both could be slowly extracted simultaneously at 225 MeV/u using the transverse knock-out extraction scheme. The ion beam has been finally characterized in the biophysics cave in terms of beam composition (particularly inter- and intra-spill He fraction), depth-dose-profiles, beam size, position and other parameters, all related to combined ion beam treatment and online monitoring. Utilizing high-speed particle radiography techniques, a fast extracted mixed ion beam has also been characterized in the plasma physics cave under conditions favorable to FLASH therapy.

FAIR (Facility for antiproton and ion research) is a new accelerator complex in Darmstadt, Germany which will come into operation 2027. The existing GSI accelerator will serve as an injector for the FAIR facility. GSI comprises three main injector lines equipped with different kinds of ion sources producing ion beams of a large number of gaseous and metallic elements according to the various requirements of different experiments. The south injector is equipped with Penning type ion sources (PIG) for metallic and gaseous ion production delivering ion currents up to 100 µA and charge states of up to 8+. The north injector is equipped with high current ion sources of the multicusp type (MUCIS, CHORDIS) and the vacuum arc type ion source VARIS. With this kind of ion source we are able to deliver ion beam currents of up to several mA of up to 5+ charged ions. The third injector is the high charge state injector equipped with a 14.5 GHz ECR ion source delivering ion beam currents of up to 100 µA and charge state of up to 20+ of gaseous and metallic ions. This paper gives an overview of all the ion beams produced by these ion sources and the most important operational parameters