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With the commission of the 15 UD Pelletron 1991, development of a System for Coincidences between Recoils and Projectile Ions (SCORPION facility) was started. The group was led by Dr. R. Sankar (BHU)in collaboration with HIRA Group of IUAC. Interest was to investigate the interaction of swift heavy ion on neutral gas atoms. Some results was obtained around 1997 to form a thesis. Afterward this system was used by TIFR groups led by Dr. D. Mathur and Dr. E. Krishnakumar to study some aspects of molecular fragmentation mechanism. However, space difficulties made the system dismantled in 1998. Another activity on inner-shell ionization of target atoms by swift light and heavy ions impact started side by side by a group of Panjab university Patiala (PUP) led by Dr. H.R. Verma with Dr. A. Mandal of IUAC. Results obtained were supposed to make three theses, but only one was materialized only because of some internal problem evolved in PUP. In 1996 when Dr. T. Nandi joined the center, there was a general consensus that an internationally competitive research problem in accelerator based atomic physics should be chosen. At that instance, lifetime investigation of metastable states in highly charged ions (HCI) using beam-two-foil experiments developed around that time at ANL, Argonne was spotted and a set up was developed in two years time from scratch. Till now experiments with both single-foiland two-foil as well as special analysis technique has resulted to provide satellite blending free lifetimes of several ions in the region Z=20-30. Further the experimental technique and the analysis have tentatively confirmed us a few physical phenomen such as intra-shell transition and ternary recombination. It may be noted that in recent years, number of experiments have been carried out for structural and lifetime study of highly charged He-and Li-like vanadium , nickel, titanium and iron. The results obtained have materialized a Ph D. thesis, an M. Phil thesis and another thesis in the way. Results have led to a couple of international publications.
