@article{9e94b77cc3974b8c95390478918d9892,
title = "A compact dication source for Ba2+ tagging and heavy metal ion sensor development",
abstract = "We present a tunable metal ion beam that delivers controllable ion currents in the picoamp range for testing of dry-phase ion sensors. Ion beams are formed by sequential atomic evaporation and single or multiple electron impact ionization, followed by acceleration into a sensing region. Controllability of the ionic charge state is achieved through tuning of electrode potentials that influence the retention time in the ionization region. Barium, lead, and cadmium samples have been used to test the system, with ion currents identified and quantified using a quadrupole mass analyzer. Realization of a clean Ba2+ ion beam within a bench-top system represents an important technical advance toward the development and characterization of barium tagging systems for neutrinoless double beta decay searches in xenon gas. This system also provides a testbed for investigation of novel ion sensing methodologies for environmental assay applications, with dication beams of Pb2+ and Cd2+ also demonstrated for this purpose.",
keywords = "Beam Optics, Heavy-ion detectors, Ion identification systems, Ion sources (positive ions,negative ions,electron cyclotron resonance (ECR),electron beam (EBIS))",
author = "{The Next Collaboration} and Navarro, {K. E.} and J. Baeza-Rubio and M. Boyd and Foss, {F. W.} and S. Giri and Jones, {B. J.P.} and Miller, {R. L.} and Nygren, {D. R.} and Samaniego, {F. J.} and K. Stogsdill and Tiscareno, {M. R.} and C. Adams and H. Almaz{\'a}n and V. {\'A}lvarez and B. Aparicio and Aranburu, {A. I.} and L. Arazi and Arnquist, {I. J.} and S. Ayet and Azevedo, {C. D.R.} and K. Bailey and F. Ballester and {del Barrio-Torregrosa}, M. and A. Bayo and Benlloch-Rodr{\'i}guez, {J. M.} and Borges, {F. I.G.M.} and S. Bounasser and N. Byrnes and S. C{\'a}rcel and Carri{\'o}n, {J. V.} and S. Cebri{\'a}n and E. Church and L. Cid and Conde, {C. A.N.} and T. Contreras and Coss{\'i}o, {F. P.} and E. Dey and G. D{\'i}az and T. Dickel and M. Elorza and J. Escada and R. Esteve and A. Fahs and R. Felkai and Fernandes, {L. M.P.} and P. Ferrario and Ferreira, {A. L.} and Freitas, {E. D.C.} and G. Mart{\'i}nez-Lema and A. Sim{\'o}n",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by the US Department of Energy under awards DE-SC0019054 and DE-SC0019223, the US National Science Foundation under award number NSF CHE 2004111 and the Robert A Welch Foundation under award number Y-2031-20200401 (University of Texas Arlington). FJS was supported by the DOE Nuclear Physics Traineeship Program award DESC0022359. The NEXT Collaboration also acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC) under Grant Agreement No. 951281-BOLD; the European Union{\textquoteright}s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014–2020) under Grant Agreement No. 957202-HIDDEN; the MCIN/AEI of Spain and ERDF A way of making Europe under grants RTI2018-095979 and PID2021-125475NB, the Severo Ochoa Program grant CEX2018-000867-S and the Ram{\'o}n y Cajal program grant RYC-2015-18820; the Generalitat Valenciana of Spain under grants PROMETEO/2021/087 and CIDEGENT/2019/049; the Department of Education of the Basque Government of Spain under the predoctoral training program non-doctoral research personnel; the Portuguese FCT under project UID/FIS/04559/2020 to fund the activities of LIBPhys-UC; the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) under grant 1223/21; the Pazy Foundation (Israel) under grants 310/22, 315/19 and 465; the US Department of Energy under contracts number DE-AC02-06CH11357 (Argonne National Laboratory), DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M). Finally, we are grateful to the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc for hosting and supporting the NEXT experiment. Publisher Copyright: 2023 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab.",
year = "2023",
month = jul,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1088/1748-0221/18/07/P07044",
language = "English",
volume = "18",
journal = "Journal of Instrumentation",
issn = "1748-0221",
publisher = "IOP Publishing Ltd.",
number = "7",
}