An Upgrade for the 1.4 MeV/u Gas Stripper at the GSI UNILAC

The GSI UNILAC will serve as part of an injector system for the future FAIR facility, currently under construction in Darmstadt, Germany. For this, it has to deliver short-pulsed, high-current, heavy-ion beams with highest beam quality. An upgrade for the 1.4 MeV/u gas stripper is ongoing to increase the yield of uranium ions in the desired charge state. The new setup features a pulsed gas injection synchronized with the beam pulse transit to increase the effective density of the stripper target while keeping the gas load for the differential pumping system low. Systematic measurements of charge state distributions and energy-loss were conducted with 238U-ion beams and different stripper gases, including H2 and He. By using H2 as a stripper gas, the yield into the most populated charge state was increased by over 50%, compared to the current stripper. Furthermore, the high gas density, enabled by the pulsed injection, results in increased mean charge states