A NEW CONCEPT OF ISOTOPE-SEPARATION USING ION-CYCLOTRON RESONANCE IN A MAGNETIC-FIELD HAVING A RADIAL COMPONENT

A new method of isotope separation is proposed. Isotopes are ionized in a magnetic field in a solenoid and are confined axially in an electrostatic potential well. Ions moving in a cyclotron orbit undergo a force which is perpendicular to both the radial magnetic field component and the velocity. Because axial oscillation takes place over the region where the component changes its direction, two isotopes can be separated in opposite directions by accelerating one of the isotopes at one extreme of the oscillation and the other at the other extreme. The axial motion of ions is assumed to be in phase (phase-locked). To experimentally confirm the effect of the radial component on ion motion, we moved the center of oscillation along the axis of the solenoid from its center to a position where both the axial and radial components vary with the coordinates, and we excited the cyclotron motion of ions. From the measured shift in the signal frequency of the accelerated ions, we could estimate the amount of displacement of the center of the cyclotron orbit as a function of the velocity of the accelerated ions. The condition for separation is studied by solving the equation for ion motion with two different magnetic field distributions. Computer simulation of the ion trajectory is carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of the method.