https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01590-w
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Comparing 
He content in magnetron sputtered and implanted targets for nuclear studies
1
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Padova, I-35131, Padova, Italy
2
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova, I-35131, Padova, Italy
3
Departamento de FAMN, Facultad de Física, Universidad de Sevilla, Apartado 1065, E-41080, Sevilla, Spain
4
Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (Univ. Seville, J. Andalucía CSIC), Av. Tomas Alva Edison 7, 41092, Seville, Spain
5
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), 01328, Dresden, Germany
6
Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Sevilla, CSIC-Univ. Seville, Avda., Américo Vespucio 49, 41092, Seville, Spain
7
Instituto de Física Corpuscular, CSIC-Univ. Valencia, E-46980, Paterna, Spain
8
Institut für Kern- und Teilchenphysik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01069, Dresden, Germany
9
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, I-35020, Legnaro, Italy
Received:
6
February
2025
Accepted:
11
May
2025
Published online:
24
May
2025
He targets are a valuable tool in nuclear physics, particularly for studying nuclear structure and dynamics via direct reactions in inverse kinematics. However, they are often prone to degradation under intense beam irradiation and have insufficient He content for use with low-intensity exotic beams. In a recent AGATA experiment at LNL, designed to study the astrophysically relevant lifetime of a 
O excited state, two types of He targets were tested. One was produced using ion implantation and the other with a novel magnetron sputtering technique, in both cases on Au substrates. Following irradiation with a stable 
O beam, they were characterized using Nuclear Reaction Analysis (NRA) and Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis (ERDA). Results demonstrated that, under the here used fabrication conditions, sputtered targets present a higher He content, while implanted ones exhibit thinner profiles. This highlights the possibilities and complementarity of these targets, suggesting their tailored use for future experimental campaigns.
© The Author(s) 2025
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
