Evaporative Production of Thin Foils for Accelerator Targets

Production of uniform targets is crucial for accelerator-based nuclear physics experiments. The Texas A&M University Cyclotron Institute is launching a target production laboratory. I have begun testing and characterizing a newly installed evaporator. This Auto306 thermal evaporator is used to evaporate materials onto glass slides to produce thin foils. Copper, tin, and chromium are the first target materials I am working with. I float the foils on water from the glass slides onto target frames. I use a resistive-surface position-sensitive silicon detector and a Thorium-228 alpha-particle source to characterize the thickness and thickness variations of the targets I have made by measuring the remaining kinetic energy and position of the alpha particles after they pass through the target foils; the thicker the target, the more kinetic energy the alpha particles lose. In this poster, I will describe the operation of the evaporator and present the quality of the targets produced.