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Abstract

The high-precision Penning-trap mass spectrometer Pentatrap aims at measurements of mass ratios of highly charged ions with an uncertainty of 10⁻¹¹ and below. An application in neutrino physics is the measurement of the mass ratio of ¹⁶³Ho and ¹⁶³Dy for the ECHo collaboration aiming at the determination of an upper limit of the neutrino mass in the sub-eV range. This master thesis reports on the construction and commissioning of a compact room-temperature electron beam ion trap (EBIT) providing highly charged ions of 163Ho for the Pentatrap experiment. For the efficient injection of very small samples of the synthetic radioisotope ¹⁶³Ho in the range of tens of ng into the EBIT a setup employing the wire probe injection technique was developed and constructed. For the first tests, the EBIT is integrated into a test setup including a Wien filter and an MCP detector as diagnostic equipment for commissioning. Through injection of argon gas, the Wien filter was calibrated and used for the identification of the charge states of extracted xenon ions. Simulations of the charge state evolution for argon and holmium have been performed showing a good agreement with the measurements in the case of argon and giving an estimate of the reachable charge states for holmium. Finally, the developed wire probe injection setup was taken into operation and the first measurements using a gold coated copper wire as wire probe are presented.