Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Electron Beam Ion Trap (EBIT)

EBIT

One of the primary applications of the EBIT is the production of fundamental data in support of such areas as X-Ray ASTROPHYSICS (upper left, NASA artist' s conception of accretion disk surrounding a black hole), FUSION DEVICES for electrical power generation (upper right, interior of Tokamak with man in yellow coat walking inside at left), SOLAR PHYSICS (bottom, solar prominence extending many earth-radii above the horizon of the sun) and EXTREME ULTRAVIOLET LITHOGRAPHY. Electron Beam Ion Traps can produce ion charge states which do not occur naturally on Earth. One can find them in hot astrophysical plasmas and in solar flares. Before the invention of the EBIT, only large facilities (high energy accelerators, Tokamak fusion reactors, etc.) were capable of controlled production of very highly charged ions.


This is the home page of the NIST Electron Beam Ion Trap, a project in the Atomic Spectroscopy Group. By browsing these pages you can learn about the basic operation principles and some technical details of the EBIT. You can also find information about the various EBIT research programs, ongoing activities, recent results, and a list of staff members.

Outline

Created October 6, 2009, Updated March 1, 2023