  The Penning-trap electronic-detection technique that offers the precision and
sensitivity requested in mass spectrometry for fundamental studies in nuclear
and particle physics has not been proven yet to be universal. This has
motivated the construction of a Penning-trap facility aiming at the
implementation of a novel detection method, consisting in measuring motional
frequencies of singly-charged trapped ions in strong magnetic fields, through
the fluorescence photons from the 4s$^2$S$_{1/2}\rightarrow $4p$^2$P$_{1/2}$
atomic transition in $^{40}$Ca$^+$. The key element of this facility is an
open-ring Penning trap, built and fully characterized, which is coupled
upstream to a preparation Penning trap similar to those built at Radioactive
Ion Beam facilities. Motional frequency measurements of trapped ions stored in
the open-ring trap have been carried out by applying external dipolar and
quadrupolar fields in resonance with the ions' eigenmotions, in combination
with time-of-flight identification. The infrastructure to observe the
fluorescence photons from $^{40}$Ca$^+$, comprising the twelve laser beams
needed in 7~Tesla, and a two-meters long system to register the image in a
high-sensitive CCD sensor, has also been successfully tested by observing
optically the trapped $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ions. This demonstrates the capabilities of
this facility for the proposed laser-based mass-spectrometry technique, and
introduces it as a unique platform to perform laser-spectroscopy experiments
with implications in different fields of physics.
