Fabrication, swift heavy ion irradiation, and damage analysis of lanthanide targets

One limiting factor in progress in the discovery and study of new superheavy elements (SHE) is the maximum achievable thickness and irradiation stability of current generation actinide targets. The desired thickness of targets, using full excitation function widths, cannot be achieved with current target technology, especially the widely used molecular plating (MP). The aim of this study was to transfer progress in the electrochemistry of lanthanides and actinides to the production of targets. Here, we report on the production of lanthanide targets using anhydrous electrochemical routes. In a first irradiation series, thulium thin films with areal densities up to 1800 mu g/cm(2) were produced using anhydrous triflate compounds and subjected to irradiation tests, using 6.0 MeV/u Ca-48 ions at a fluence of 3.9 x 10(14) ions/cm(2) and 8.6 MeV/u Au-197 ions at fluences in the range of 3.0 x 10(11) to 1.0 x 10(13) ions/cm(2). The thin films were characterised before and after the irradiations using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX).