KU Leuven - The Ion and Molecular Beam Lab

The Ion and Molecular Beam Lab (IMBL) plays a central role in the surface and thin film research at our Institute. Nuclear as well as conventional material analysis techniques were brought together with various sample preparation techniques such as Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and Ion Implantation. This project is a collaboration of two research groups from the Department of Physics of the University of Leuven, i.e. the Nuclear Solid State Physics group of IKS and the laboratory of Solid State Physics and Magnetism (VSM).

A schematic plan view of the Ion and Molecular Beam Laboratory is given below. The main entities are represented in different colors.

The IMBL consists mainly of three parts: the Leuven Ion Separator (LIS), the Pelletron Accelerator and the Ultra High Vacuum System. The central switching magnet enables us to direct the ion beam coming from the LIS to three different chambers, respectively used to perform (i) standard implantation and (ii) softlanding. The Pelletron Accelerator produces ions beams that are used for (i) Rutherford Backscattering (RBS) and channeling measurements and (ii) Particle Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE) and Nuclear Reaction Analysis (NRA) measurements. This beam line is also connected to the central switching magnet allowing us to perform online RBS experiments. The UHV system consists out of several preparation and surface analysis facilities. The softlanding chamber is also integrated in the UHV system which enables us to do in situ implantations and depositions.