The off-line ion source (OLIS) terminal consists of a microwave cusp ion source, either a surface ion source or a hybrid surface-arc discharge ion source and an electrostatic switch that allows selecting any one of the sources without mechanical intervention. These sources provide variety of beams to ISAC experiments, for commissioning the accelerators, for setting up the radioactive experiments, and for tuning the beam lines. The microwave ion source has been operational since 1995 and provides singly and doubly charged beams from various stable isotopes for many ISAC experiments at high and low energy areas. Originally its prime goal was to provide beams from gaseous elements, but later two ovens and a sputtering system were added in order to provide beams from liquids and from solids. The surface ion source installed in 2002 can provide low energy spread beams from alkali and semialkali elements. It also has three separate ovens and an ionizer. Therefore, it can provide three different temperature regions simultaneously to provide different beams to ISAC. It is mainly used for laser spectroscopy experiments and other experiments, which require a finite beam quality. A hybrid surface-arc discharge ion source was also developed and installed in order to meet specific demands from experiments. This source terminal is now automated for start up and for mass selection. It is capable of providing stable beams for months without maintenance and it is also capable of providing negative ion beams if required. To date, over 40 different isotopes including many rear isotopes were delivered to various experiments from the OLIS source terminal. Performances of the ion sources and some of the results are discussed.

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At TRIUMF, H− ion sources have been characterized on a teststand to improve the understanding of their performance. Measured beam characteristics such as current, emittance, and e∕H− ratio were correlated with source conditions as a function of relevant plasma parameters. Plasma densities, temperatures, and plasma potentials were measured with a Langmuir probe and correlated with beam properties for different confining magnetic fields and different values of arc power and gas pressure. The mechanism of beam extraction was studied by correlating plasma potential profiles with the corresponding plasma electrode bias voltages obtained from optimizing ion source outputs. Experiments with collar biasing and noble gas mixing were unsuccessful because of undesirable plasma potential profiles.

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Harmonic seeded operation of a neon-like titanium plasma-based soft x-ray laser is described. The plasma amplifier is pumped with a variation of the grazing incidence technique involving a fast and localized ionization step. We discuss its effect on gain dynamics by measuring the amplifying factor as a function of the delay between pump pulse and harmonic seed. Two different regimes are pointed out, following the pumping scheme used. For one of them, a delay in the gain generation compared with the pumping laser pulse is observed.