The radioactive beam facility ALTO

Abstract The Transnational Access facility ALTO (TNA07-ENSAR/FP7) has been commissioned and received from the French safety authorities, the operation license. It is allowed to run at nominal intensity to produce 10 11  fissions/s in a thick uranium carbide target by photo-fission using a 10 μA, 50 MeV electron beam. In addition the recent success in operating the selective laser ion source broadens the physics program with neutron-rich nuclear beams possible at this facility installed at IPN Orsay. The facility also aims at being a test bench for the SPIRAL2 project. In that framework an ambitious R&D program on the target ion source system is being developed.