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Abstract

A cryogenic electrostatic storage ring (CSR) is under construction at the Max-Planck-Institut f¨ur Kernphysik in Heidelberg (MPI-K), which will be a unique facility for low velocity and in many cases also phase-space cooled ion beams. Amongst other experiments the cooling and storage of molecular ions in their rotational ground state is planned. To meet this demand the ring must provide a vacuum in the XHV range (10⁻¹³ mbar room temperature equivalent) which will be achieved by cooling the ion beam vacuum chambers to 2 - 10 K. This also provides a very low level of blackbody radiation. The projected beam current will be in the range of 1 nA - 1 μA. The resulting low signal strengths together with the cold environment put strong demands on the amplifier electronics. We plan to make use of a resonant amplifying system. Using coils made from high purity copper, we expect quality factors of ∼1000. The mechanical design has to provide stability and reproducibility of the alignment despite thermal shrinking when switching from room temperature operation to cryogenic operation. A prototype pickup has been built in order to test resonant amplification and the mechanical design using the wire method. The resonant amplification principle was tested in the MPI-K’s Test Storage Ring (TSR).