Production and release of ISOL beams from molten fluoride salt targets

In the framework of the Beta Beams project, a molten fluoride target has been proposed for the production of the required 1013 18Ne/s. The production and extraction of such rates are predicted to be possible on a circulating molten salt with 160 MeV proton beams at close to 1 MW power. As a most important step to validate the concept, a prototype has been designed and investigated at CERN-ISOLDE using a static target unit. The target material consisted of a binary fluoride system, NaF:LiF (39:61 mol.%), with melting point at 649 °C. The production of Ne beams has been monitored as a function of the target temperature and proton beam intensity. The prototype development and the results of the first online tests with 1.4 GeV proton beam are presented in this paper.