Production of light neutron-rich nuclei in fusion-evaporation reactions

I will discuss our work to extend the experimental data on light neutron-rich nuclei and present new results on $^{18}$N (Z=7), which is sufficiently far from stability to exhibit modified shell structure, yet still within the reach of stable beam facilities. $^{18}$N was produced using the $^{9}$Be($^{11}$B,2p)$^{18}$N fusion reaction at LBNL's 88-Inch Cyclotron and studied using STARS-LIBERACE, a large area segmented silicon $\Delta $E-E detector telescope and six HPGe ``Compton Suppressed'' Clover detectors. Previous information on the excited states of $^{18}$N came from $^{18}$C beta-decay and charge-exchange reactions only. A key aspect of the current measurement was to use the 2-proton evaporation reaction channel. The large Q-value and the chosen beam energy (50 MeV) suppressed the evaporation of additional neutrons, with the result that a 2p ``gate'' uniquely selected the $^{18}$N products.