abstract
Solid state physics (SSP) research at ISOLDE has been running since the mid-1970s and accounts for about 10%-15% of the overall physics programme. ISOLDE is the world flagship for the on-line production of exotic radioactive isotopes, with high yields, high elemental selectivity and isotopic purity. Consequently, it hosts a panoply of state-of-the-art nuclear techniques which apply nuclear methods to research on life sciences, material science and biochemical physics. The ease of detecting radioactivity-<1 ppm concentrations-is one of the features which distinguishes the use of radioisotopes for materials science research. The manner in which nuclear momenta of excited nuclear states interact with their local electronic and magnetic environment, or how charged emitted particles interact with the crystalline lattices allow the determination of the location, its action and the role of the selected impurity element at the nanoscopic state. ISOLDE offers an unrivalled range of available radioactive elements and this is attracting an increasing user community in the field of nuclear SSP research and brings together a community of materials scientists and specialists in nuclear solid state techniques. This article describes the current status of this programme along with recent illustrative results, predicting a bright future for these unique research methods and collaborations.
keywords
SI PAD DETECTORS; MOSSBAUER-SPECTROSCOPY; RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES; TRANSITION-METALS; SILICON; EMISSION; DIFFUSION; TIME; SEMICONDUCTORS; IDENTIFICATION
subject category
Physics
authors
Johnston, K; Schell, J; Correia, JG; Deicher, M; Gunnlaugsson, HP; Fenta, AS; David-Bosne, E; Costa, ARG; Lupascu, DC
our authors
Abel Eduardo Silva Fenta
Collaboratoracknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge many years of support given to the maintenance and upgrade of the solid state physics laboratories and provision of large scale equipment by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through different grants, including 05K13TSA and 05K16PGA, from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) project CERN-FIS-NUC-0004-2015 and Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) in collaboration with the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). ASF acknowledges the PhD grants support by FCT (SFRH/BD/84743/2012) and KU Leuven. ED-B and ARGC acknowledge FCT-PhD grants (SFRH/BD/95865/2013 and SFRH/BD/86386/2012.