Abstract

The implementation of resonance ionization using powerful tunable laser systems at high transmission mass separators has led to numerous research activities on stable as well as radioactive isotopes. Aside of the application as highly selective and efficient ion source for rare species at radioactive ion beam (RIB) facilities like ISOLDE at CERN or ISAC at TRIUMF, direct in-source spectroscopy on atomic structure and nuclear ground state properties are carried out, e.g., in the range of the actinides and other radioisotopes. At the RISIKO off-line mass separator facility the laser systems are adapted and such investigations are prepared, complementing efficient implantation runs of ultrapure radioisotope samples for specific programs. These include collections of ⁶Li, ⁵³Mn, ⁵⁵Fe, ¹⁵⁸Tb, ¹⁶³Ho, and ²²⁶Ra in microscopic metallic calorimeters (MMCs) and on other targets. The technology will be presented with special emphasis on the laser systems and the required mass separator optimizations together with some recent applications of relevance. 

Short Bio

Wendt received his doctorate from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in 1985 under Ernst-Wilhelm Otten (having previously spent five years at CERN) and qualified as a professor there in 1999. He turned down an offer of a professorship at the Institute of Isotope Physics at the University of Vienna in 2006. He has been an adjunct professor at the University of Mainz since 2007.
He is also involved in physics didactics (teacher training, teaching with digital media, virtual reality experiments) and the public presentation of physics (not only in schools but also in theaters, libraries, etc.). To this end, he founded the NaT-Lab Physics at the University of Mainz in 2002.
In 2022, he was awarded the Robert Wichard Pohl Prize, in particular for his outstanding work in the field of atomic and nuclear physics and trace analysis, as well as for the development of laser systems that are now in use worldwide (laudation).