On Tuesday October 31st, after a short conditioning of the ISOL machine, a first ion beam was produced inside the SPES bunker. The ion beam was composed by non-radioactive atoms, it is usually called pilot beam. The beam, with a current of approximately 400 nA consisting mainly of nitrogen, potassium and carbon oxide ions, was extracted with a voltage of 50 kV and it was accelerated to the very first reading instrument (Faraday Cup) along the beam line. This is the first step to have an exotic ion beam for nuclear and interdisciplinary physics studies as foreseen in the SPES project.
