After a brief introduction to the NIST EBIT facility, we present the results of three different types of experiments that have been carried out there recently: EUV and visible spectroscopy in support of the microelectronics industry, laboratory astrophysics using an x-ray microcalorimeter, and charge exchange studies using extracted beams of highly charged ions.
THE NIST EBIT FACILITY: HISTORY AND OVERVIEWElectron Beam Ion Traps (EBITs) emerged on the world scene in 1988 with the publication of the first results by the Livermore-LBL collaboration [1]. Results that depended critically on high-resolution x-ray spectroscopy with an EBIT appeared in the Physical Review in 1989 [2], using an NRL-NIST spectrometer at Livermore, in collaboration with P. Beiersdorfer. This work followed some other important EBIT high-resolution spectroscopy work presented earlier in various conference proceedings. Two years later, construction of a new EBIT laboratory at NIST began, in collaboration with NRL, and two years after that (1993) we began trapping ions and publishing papers from the NIST facility. A compilation of the early Livermore EBIT papers was published in 1992 [3]. Recently, we published a bound collection of the NIST EBIT publications through 2001, which is available in hardcopy and CD from NIST [4]. The NIST compilation also contains some previously unpublished historical information about both the NIST and LLNL EBITs (written by the first author of the present paper, and by Ross Marrs of LLNL).The NIST EBIT incorporates a number of design changes that are intended to allow it to reach higher beam energies than those obtained in the EBIT-I and EBIT-II at