Operation and development of the double electrostatic ion-beam storage ring, DESIREE

DESIREE is a national infrastructure for ion studies.

It consists of two 8.7-m circumference cryogenic electrostatic ion-beam storage rings with beam lifetimes of up to hours.

It offers unique possibilities to pursue the overarching scientific goal, which is to increase our understanding of the structures, interactions and dynamics of atoms, molecules and clusters, and to contribute to numerous applications.The successful operation of DESIREE – one of only three cryogenic ion-beam storage rings worldwide – strengthens the international position and visibility of Sweden in this field of research.Ground-breaking results from DESIREE, published by users in 2022 alone, include: a general method for precision measurements of atomic and molecular electron affinities; studies of cooling dynamics and inherent stabilities of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their fragments; mutual neutralization between positive and negative ions with applications in modelling of elemental abundances in stars, in ion-thruster technology, and in the atmospheric sciences.

Early in 2023, DESIREE-results on fast cooling of internally hot cyano-naphtalene helped to explain the observation of an unexpected, exceptionally high, abundance of this key molecule in space.DESIREE access is granted based on independent evaluations of proposals by international experts.We ask for support for DESIREE-operation 2025–2028, and for implementation of an emerging new detector technology based on microcalorimetry.