Physics and Technology of the SPES Charge Breeder

This thesis has been developed in the framework of the SPES Project, an ISOL-Facility in the pipeline at the Legnaro National Laboratories of the INFN: the aim of the project is the production, ionization and post-acceleration of radioactive elements for Nuclear Physics experiments. In particular, the work has dealt with the theoretical - numerical study of a device, called Charge Breeder (CB), essential for the post-acceleration of the radioactive species produced. Among the available methods, a technique based on ECR sources has been chosen for the SPES Project. After having examined in depth the physical phenomena at the base of the Charge Breeding, a code able to reproduce the process has been developed in the Matlab environment: the ECR sources plasma has been gradually introduced with more and more complex physical models, obtaining a good agreement with the theoretical predictions on ions dynamics and their confinement. Finally, the complete model has been able to reproduce, with satisfactory correspondence, the experimental results obtained at the LPSC Laboratory in Grenoble, by injecting a Rb1+ ions beam inside the charge breeder there installed, and called PHOENIX. The experience matured during this PhD has also been enriched by an intense and fruitful experimental activity, carried out in the framework of the European Project EMILIE, at the LPSC in Grenoble, that has contributed to better understand the mechanisms at the base of the Charge Breeding process. This experimental work has been aim of a publication on a peer-reviewed journal and another article is currently under consideration by the referees. Eventually, these three years of PhD have seen a collaboration with LPSC, culminated in June 2014, with the signature of a Research Collaboration Agreement for the supply, to LNL, of an up-to-date version of the PHOENIX CB complete of ancillary systems (SPES-CB). The activity in this framework has implied both my management of this collaboration on behalf of the Laboratories, and the choice of different technological solutions that will be adopted on the SPES-CB.