ION IRRADIATION FACILITY FOR MATERIALS RESEARCH AT THE 1.4 MEV U HIGH-CHARGE STATE INJECTOR OF GSI/

A new 1.4 MeV/u injector for the UNILAC has been in operation for two years in parallel to the Wideroe prestripper accelerator. It consists of an ECR ion source, a 108 MHz RFQ, and a 108 MHz interdigital H stru cture. This combination has led to a very compact linac providing beam s of highly charged heavy ions up to U28+. High-duty cycle performance together with a beam switching and pulsing system allows to simultane ously provide the UNILAC and an experimental beam line for target irra diations with beam. The technical concept of the experimental beam lin e including different beam diagnostic tools, beam forming elements, an x-y beam scanning system and a large volume beam-target interaction c hamber is outlined. The experimental possibilities are discussed and f irst experiments with polymer samples irradiated with different ion sp ecies are presented.