Design Issues of Radioactive Ion Beam Facilities

There is an increasing interest in Radioactive Ion Beams throughout the world. These ions open new domains of research for nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics and atomic physics. Two methods are used for the production of these beams: fragmentation of a primary, high energy heavy ion beam passing through a thin target or nuclei production in a thick target bombarded either by a heavy ion beam, a proton beam or by neutrons. When radioactive species are produced in a thick target, they must be extracted, ionised, separated, identified and finally accelerated. This requires a radioactive ion source, a mass separator and a post accelerator. This paper reviews these two methods, their respective domains and the specific problems related to the control and the acceleration of radioactive ion beams.