Trajectory bending and energy spreading of charged ions in time-of-flight telescopes used for ion beam analysis

Abstract

Carbon foil time pick-up detectors are widely used in pairs in ion beam applications as time-of-flight detectors. These detectors are suitable for a wide energy range and for all ions but at the lowest energies the tandem effect limits the achievable time of flight and therefore the energy resolution. Tandem effect occurs when an ion passes the first carbon foil of the timing detector and its charge state is changed. As the carbon foil of the first timing detector has often a non-zero voltage the ion can accelerate or decelerate before and after the timing detector. The combination of different charge state properties before and after the carbon foil now induces spread to the measured times of flight. We have simulated different time pick-up detector orientations, voltages, ions and ion energies to examine the tandem effect in detail and found out that the individual timing detector orientation and the average ion charge state have a very small influence to the magnitude of the tandem effect. On the other hand, the width of the charge state distribution for particular ion and energy in the first carbon foil, and the carbon foil voltage contributes linearly to the magnitude of the tandem effect. In the simulations low energy light ion trajectories were observed to bend in the electric fields of the first timing gate, and the magnitude of this bending was studied. It was found out that 50–150 keV proton trajectories can even bend outside the second timing gate.