Performance of the St. George Detector System

The St. George recoil mass separator at the University of Notre Dame will be used to study $(\alpha,\gamma)$ reactions of astrophysical interest. A detection system was developed for the St. George recoil mass separator, in collaboration with Indiana University South Bend, that will utilize energy and time-of-flight to separate reaction products from residual unreacted beam particles. The detection system uses two microchannel plate (MCP) detectors, perpendicular electric and magnetic field are used to bend secondary electrons from the surface of a parylene backed carbon foil to register timing measurements, and a silicon strip detector is used to measure the ion’s kinetic energy. The performance of the detection system will be presented.