Uppsala University, Sweden

With its four particle accelerators, the Tandem Laboratory at Uppsala University, Sweden, has the status of a “unique installation” – equivalent to an independent department – within the Faculty of Science and Technology. Run by a director and steered by a board of representatives from different Swedish authorities and foundations, we follow our mission to serve the Swedish academic, industrial and public sector with world-leading ion-beam based materials research.

The Tandem Laboratory provides services in three activity branches. We can provide our users access to

• non-destructive characterization of composition & structure of materials on the nanoscale
• ion-beam induced modification of materials and precise tailoring of material properties
• ultra-sensitive mass-spectrometry for medicine, biology, archaeology and geology.

Our services within ion beam analysis (IBA), ion-beam modification of materials (IBMM) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) are requested by hundreds of customers annually.

Manifold possibilities

The 5 MV Pelletron accelerator is the largest accelerator at the laboratory. Being capable of supplying a broad range of different light and heavy ion species from four dedicated sources with energies from 2 MeV to several 10 MeV, it enables the machine to be used for a number of different techniques within mass spectrometry, ion beam analysis and ion beam modification of materials.

The ion implanter with 350 kV maximum acceleration voltage and a particle current of up to milliampere provides a high degree of freedom in possible applications enabling high-dose ion implantation on large targets. At the same time, the system can be used as an ion source for ion beam analysis and our unique Time-of-Flight Medium Energy Ion Scattering system for non-destructive depth-resolved crystallography on the nanoscale.

Micadas is a compact tandem accelerator specifically developed for carbon mass spectrometry of highest quality. The instrument is equipped with permanent magnets reducing energy consumption and is designed for efficient handling of different sample types.

The newly installed Time-of-Flight Low Energy Ion Scattering system employs ions with energies below 10 keV to study the composition and structure of the outermost atomic layer of solids. In parallel the set-up is capable of depth-profiling on sub-nanometer length scales. An attached in-situ UHV chamber allows for in-situ thin film growth and characterization by using e.g. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and low-energy electron diffraction (LEED).

Funding and support

The Tandem Laboratory national infrastructure is supported by the Swedish Research Council and the Foundation for Strategic Research. Uppsala University has in an internal prioritising process emphasised the national character of the Tandem Laboratory infrastructure and defined a mission statement clarifying its role.

 

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