CERN, Geneva
Over the last few years the REX-ISOLDE post accelerator has delivered 24 different radioactive elements and over 60 isotopes with masses ranging from 8 to 204 amu and with half-lives down to some 10 ms. The high demand for beam time in combination with the versatility of the machine results in 7-8 experiments per year. The low-energy part of REX, consisting of a Penning trap and Electron beam ion source, has developed from a pure bunching and charge-breeding system to an elaborate set of tools that can be used for different purposes. The mass-selectivity of the Penning trap has been explored and a maintained high transmission for the low-energy stage could be demonstrated by the use of pulsed injection from a newly installed RFQ cooler. As a result isobarically clean beams can in principle be provided to the experiments although complications arise for relatively high beam currents. This year we've also shown that the low energy system, particularly the EBIS, can be used for in-trap decays. That means also elements that are normally difficult to extract from the ISOL target-ion source (e.g. refractory elements such as Fe) can be delivered to the experiments by letting the straightforwardly produced mother-nuclei decay in the EBIS before being accelerated. Finally, recent development projects will be discussed such as the setup for polarization of accelerated radioactive beams, presently under build-up.
