China's first beam commissioning of SSC-Linac as an injector of the Separate Sector Cyclotron (SSC) with the ⁴⁰Ar⁷⁺ beam was performed successfully  by researchers from the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. On December 17, the particle energy of 5.98MeV/u was obtained at the exit of SSC at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL).  

This great improvement ushers in an era of the HIRFL operation with multiple injectors. 

To improve the HIRFL beam delivery capabilities, SSC-Linac, a highly-charged and high-current heavy ion normal conducting linear accelerator working in the continuous wave (CW) mode, was designed and manufactured by IMP. And the four-rod RFQ accelerator was co-developed by scientists from IMP and Peking University. 

In the first beam commissioning, the ⁴⁰Ar⁷⁺beam with the current of 9 eμA was obtained at the exit of the linac. The measured normal emittance was 0.5π·mm·mrad in both transverse spaces. Finally, a 300 enA beam with the energy of 5.98 MeV/u was extracted  after accelerated by SSC.  

The successful commissioning plays a significant role in increasing the capacity of HIRFL, expanding the operation mode and enhancing the machine operation efficiency in the future.

                                          FIG1. Measured emittance at the exit of SSC-Linac (Image by IMP) 

                                        FIG 2. SSC-Linac (Image by CONG Yan) 

Contact :

LIU Fang

Institute of Modern Physics

Email: fangliu@impcas.ac.cn