Laser Spectroscopy on Beryllium

In recent years modern techniques of laser spectroscopy have enabled measurements of optical isotope shifts in the lower region of the nuclear chart. The measurements in this region represent a challenge because the exotic isotopes close to the neutron drip line have very low production rates and short half-lives and the technique has to provide high resolution. Isotope shifts are sensitive to small differential changes in size of the nuclear charge distribution and therefore provide a nuclear-model-independent information on the nuclear charge radius. After a brief introduction to the method and the results obtained for lithium and helium, in this talk I will describe in detail the technique and the setup we implemented to measure the isotope shift along the beryllium isotopic chain up to Be-12. At the end I will shortly highlight how these measurements have also enabled us to extract the fine structure splitting of Be-9 and how this technique has the potential to be applied along the boron isotopic chain including the proton rich nucleus Boron-8.