Multi-hit delay line anode detectors in experiments involving collisions of highly charged ions with molecules

This thesis reports the construction, installation, and testing of a delay-line-detector to supplement the detection capability of an existing recoil-ion momentum spectrometer. In particular the new detector will allow the detection of molecular-ion fragments produced in collisions between highly-charged ions and molecules. Collision systems of this type are of interest in fields such as astrophysics and biophysics. The particular motivation in this laboratory has been the observation of X-ray emission from cometary tails.; Previous multi-coincidence studies of multielectron processes in highly charged ion-atom collisions have been conducted in this laboratory, [Hasan et al., Eissa et al.]. This apparatus and expertise gained provided the foundation to accommodate the increased complexity introduced by molecular targets. After installation the detector was used to collect molecular-ion fragments produced in 70 keV O7+ collisions with CO. The DLD operation will be described and results demonstrating its capabilities will be presented. In particular, the ability to detect more than one ion fragment as a result of residual molecular-ion dissociation will be confirmed.