The cryogenic gas stopping cell of SHIPTRAP

The overall efficiency of the Penning-trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP at GSI Darmstadt, employed for high-precision mass measurements of exotic nuclei in the mass region above fermium, is presently mostly limited by the stopping and extraction of fusion-evaporation products in the SHIPTRAP gas cell. To overcome this limitation a second-generation gas cell with increased stopping volume was designed. In addition, its operation at cryogenic temperatures leads to a higher gas density at a given pressure and an improved cleanliness of the helium buffer gas. Here, the results of experiments with a 219Rn recoil ion source are presented. An extraction efficiency of 74(3)% was obtained, a significa…