Reliable Operation of the Brookhaven EBIS for Highly Charged Ion Production for RHIC and NSRL

An Electron Beam Ion Source for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC EBIS) was commissioned at Brookhaven in September 2010 and since then it routinely supplies ions for RHIC and NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) as the main source of highly charged ions from Helium to Uranium. Using three external primary ion sources for 1+ injection into the EBIS and an electrostatic injection beam line, ion species at the EBIS exit can be switched in 0.2 s. A total of 16 different ion species have been produced to date. The length and the capacity of the ion trap have been increased by 20% by extending the trap by two more drift tubes, compared with the original design. The fraction of Au32+ in the EBIS Au spectrum is approximately 12% for 70-80% electron beam neutralization and 8 pulses operation in a 5 Hertz train and 4-5 s super cycle. For single pulse per super cycle operation and 25% electron beam neutralization, the EBIS achieves the theoretical Au32+ fractional output of 18%. Long term stability has been very good with availability of the beam from RHIC EBIS during 2012 and 2014 RHIC runs approximately 99.8%.