Production of Ruthenium-96 Ions for RHIC

The 2018 heavy ion experimental program for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) requires the collisions of ruthenium-96 (Ru-96) ions. The production of Ru-96 ions is challenging due to the low abundance of the 96 isotope in natural ruthenium (5.52%) and the small quantity of isotopically enriched material available. To best meet the needs of the experimental program, the BNL Tandem Van de Graaff and a cesium sputter ion source will be used as the injector for the RHIC acceleration chain. A research program was started to minimize the amount of enriched material required while still satisfy the experimental requirements for intensity. The lifetime of the ruthenium cathodes were also studied.