Stripping foils at RHIC

There are two major science programs at the relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC). These are the heavy ion programs, which collide beams of fully stripped ions, and the polarized proton program. A wide variety of stripper foils and carbon targets are used throughout the RHIC accelerator chain to facilitate these collisions. Each stripper and target has unique properties and functions. Those characteristics will be discussed, as well as recent efforts to improve their performance.