Observation of doubly-charged ions of francium isotopes extracted from a gas cell

Various isotopes of Ac, Ra, Fr, and Rn were produced by fusion-evaporation reactions using a 48Ca beam. The energetic ions were stopped in and extracted from a helium gas cell. The extracted ions were identified using a multi-reflection time-of-fight mass spectrograph. In all cases, it was observed that the predominant charge state for the extracted ions, including the alkali Fr, was 2+.