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Abstract

Electron beam ion traps (EBITs) are efficient tools for highly charged ion (HCI) production and studies. However, due to the high ion temperature inside of an EBIT (on the order of MK), laser spectroscopy on HCIs is severely constrained by Doppler broadening. A novel cryogenic linear Paul trap experiment in-line with an EBIT will allow for trapping and sympathetic cooling of HCIs by nine orders of magnitude, down to the mK range, and thus for resolving the natural linewidth of forbidden optical transitions in HCI. To connect both instruments, a compact low energy beamline has been designed, assembled and successfully commissioned in this thesis. The deceleration, time-focussing and reduction in energy spread of the ion bunches is performed by two specifically shaped electrodes and is based on the pulsed drift tube method. The setup allows for efficient ion transfer at reasonable high kinetic energy and injection of decelerated HCIs at low kinetic energy into the Paul trap. The possibility to determine the current charge state distribution of ions in the EBIT plasma in pulsed extraction mode with a time-of-flight technique allowed for the observation of KLL dielectronic recombination resonances in argon and neon.