Production of rare isotope beams with the NSCL fragment separator

Rare isotope beams at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory are produced by projectile fragmentation of medium energy primary beams on beryllium targets. The fragments of interest are selected by the A1900 high-acceptance fragment separator. The A1900 consists of superconducting magnets: four 45 degrees dipoles and eight quadrupole triplets with a maximum magnetic rigidity of 6 Tm. A momentum acceptance of Delta p/p = 5% with a solid angle acceptance of Delta Omega = 8 msr makes the A1900 one of the highest-acceptance separators in the world. Detector systems installed within the device allow tracking and unambiguous identification of individual isotopes. During the first three years of operation of the A1900, more than 200 different rare isotope beams approaching both the neutron and proton driplines have been delivered to experiments. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.