Electron Beam Ion Source

The Brookhaven Collider-Accelerator Department, with the support of DOE's Office of Nuclear Physics, has successfully developed a new pre-injector system, called the Electron Beam Ion Source (EBIS), for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) science programs. The first of several planned improvements to the RHIC facility, EBIS will help transform RHIC into the Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD) Lab that will enable the study of QCD in more detail.

The EBIS Test Stand

The workhorse injectors for nuclear physics over the past 40 years and most recently for the RHIC physics program and NSRL radiobiology and physics programs are two Tandem van de Graaff accelerators, which supply ion beams that are transported along a 700-meter-long beamline to the Booster synchrotron. The beams are accelerated further in the Booster and are either delivered to NSRL or further on to the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron for the NASA program or injection into RHIC.

EBIS will have significantly better performance than the Tandems. It will consist of an electron beam ionization source, followed by a radiofrequency quadrupole linac and an interdigital-H linac. It will reside in the 200 MeV proton linac area and will provide all stable ion species from deuterons to uranium, including noble gases such as helium and argon, at higher beam intensities than presently available, with much reduced operating costs and greater operational flexibility. With EBIS, we will be able to switch different ion beams to the Booster, AGS, and RHIC on a timescale of one second.

EBIS is expected to be operational in 2010.

Last Modified: August 6, 2010
Please forward all questions about this site to: Kerry Mirabella

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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