Gas Cell in RIB Research - A future/historical perspective

Gas cell technology has revolutionized the RIB production field by providing capabilities that merge the universality of the in-flight production approaches with the beam quality of the ISOL techniques, combining the best of both worlds. This talk will present the basic principles behind this approach and follow the evolution of these devices from the early small scale devices to current state-of-the-art instruments. The many challenges that had to be overcome will be presented, together with the curent capabilities, remaining challenges, and the proposed way forward.