An Electron Target/cooler for Extremely Low-Energy Ion Beams at the Electrostatic Storage Ring

An electrostatic storage ring for studying atomic and molecular science has been operational at KEK since May, 2000. The ring has a circumference of 8 m and can store light-to-heavy ions with an E/q of up to 30 keV. Light ions are produced with an electron cyclotron resonance ion source, while bio-molecular ions are produced with an electrospray ion source The measured 1/e-lifetimes of stored single-charge ions injected from the electron cyclotron resonance ion source are from 10 to 50 s. On the other hand, ions from the electrospray ion source have lifetimes from 12 to 20 s. These lifetimes are long enough to cool vibrationally excited molecular ions, and their intensities are tolerable for practical use, like atomic collision experiments. In order to study electron-ion collisions, an electron beam target has been designed, which will be installed in a straight section of the ring. The structure of the target is almost the same as an electron cooler consisting of an adiabatically expanded electron beam; the target can also function as an electron cooler for light-mass ions.