Improvement in beam quality of the JAEA AVF cyclotron for focusing heavy-ion beams with energies of hundreds of MeV

In order to achieve a heavy-ion microbeam with an energy of hundreds of MeV applied to the research fields of biotechnology and materials science, the JAEA AVF cyclotron ( K = 110) has been upgraded to provide a high quality beam with a smaller energy spread and a higher current stability. A flat-top (FT) acceleration system of the cyclotron, designed to produce ion beams with an energy spread of Δ E/ E ⩽ 0.02%, has been developed to reduce chromatic aberrations in the lenses of the focusing microbeam system. The FT acceleration system provides uniform energy gain of the beam by superimposing a fifth-harmonic voltage on the fundamental one. In addition, stabilization of the acceleration rf voltage and the phase were achieved to accelerate the high quality beam and to provide it stably to the microbeam system connected to a cyclotron beam line. In the latest experiment, we have succeeded to accelerate 260 MeV 20Ne 7+ with an energy spread of 0.05% in FWHM using the FT acceleration system.