ToF diagnostic of Tin resonant laser photoionization in SPES laser offline laboratory

Tin is the principal element of interest in the SPES ISOL facility, which is under construction at Legnaro INFN Laboratories. Atomic nuclei have a shell structure in which nuclei with "magic numbers" of protons and neutrons are analogous to the noble gasses in atomic physics. In particular, recent theoretical studies, reveal double-magic nature of radioactive 132Sn. For this reason the nuclear physics community demonstrated, in the last years, a huge interest to produce and study this radioactive neutron rich isotope. Experiments on Tin laser resonant ionization have been performed in the offline SPES laser laboratory to investigate the capability of the new home-made Time of Flight (ToF) mass spectrometer. Several three-step, two color ionization schemes have been tested by comparing fast and slow optogalvanic signals from a Tin Hollow Cathode Lamp (HCL) and Time of Flight signals from the spectrometer. By scanning the wavelength of one of the two dye lasers across the specific resonance, comparisons of ionization signals from both the ToF and the HCL have been made, finding perfect agreement. Furthermore, with the mass spectrometer, resolved peaks of all the natural Tin isotopes have been detected. The natural abundances extracted from these measurements are in agreement with the table values for Tin isotopes. This work, with comparison of OGE and ToF signals, confirm the fully functional SPES offline laser laboratory capability in order to develop scheme studies also for the other possible Radioactive Ion Beam (RIB) elements.