DESIREE: Instrumentation Developments and Hot Metal Cluster Decays

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents instrumentation developments and measurements performed at the Double ElectroStatic Ion Ring ExpEriment, DESIREE, at Stockholm University. DESIREE operates at cryogenic temperatures ~13 K, with very low background pressures of ~10-14mbar, allowing the observation of stored ions to long times of tens of seconds and longer.Investigations into improving the count rate capability of the DESIREE detectors are presented. Microchannel plate (MCP) detectors are used for position sensitive particle counting in the DESIREE detector assemblies. In a cryogenic environment the operational resistance of MCPs is orders of magnitude higher than at room temperature and this limits the possible count rates. Novel low-resistance MCP detectors were investigated and resulted in the replacement of the MCPs in the DESIREE detector assemblies.DESIREE was used to measure spontaneous decays of hot, small cluster anions. The decays of small silver, copper and gold cluster anions are presented and compared to statistical model calculations. An experiment that is able to measure the proportion of spontaneous decay due to fragmentation or electron detachment in dimer anions of silver and copper is presented and significant, previously overlooked, contributions from electron detachment to the decay is identified. Furthermore, measurements of the stability and decay of small carbon cluster dianions are presented. These experiments utilised the aforementioned low-resistance MCPs.