Clean recoil implantation of the ¹⁰⁰Pd/Rh TDPAC probe using a solenoidal separator

The synthesis and recoil implantation of the ¹⁰⁰Pd/Rh probe for time differential perturbed angular correlation (TDPAC) spectroscopy using the solenoidal reaction product separator SOLITAIRE has been demonstrated for the first time. The separator suppresses the co-implantation of the intense flux of elastically scattered projectile ions that can affect results obtained with the hyperfine interactions technique. Using three different fusion evaporation reactions, the solenoid field was optimised at 4.5 T to achieve a concentrated, circular focus of evaporation residue ions with a lateral FWHM of 20 mm. Employing the reaction ⁹²Zr(¹²C,4n)¹⁰⁰Pd several samples have been recoil-implanted with the ¹⁰⁰Pd/Rh probe. Gamma-ray spectroscopy of a silver sample and a TDPAC measurement on zinc confirm that the new preparation technique is effective. The ratio function measured with TDPAC of an undoped germanium sample may indicate that palladium-defect pairs are absent when implanting with SOLITAIRE. However, a direct comparison with TDPAC results for germanium samples prepared with conventional recoil implantation, which does not suppress the flux of elastics, does not support this assertion.