Production and Separation of Radioactive Ion Beams

Radioactive nuclei play an important role in many astrophysical scenarios,from the Big-Bang Nucleo-synthesis to the standard solar model, from quiescent burning to the most explosive events that can occur in our universe. A huge effort has been made for more than thirty years to construct facilities able to deliver beams of radioactive nuclei with increasing intensity and better quality. This contribution revises the different mechanisms and the separation techniques employed for the production of Radioactive Ion Beams