We measured 14 O + 4 He excitation functions for elastic scattering which demonstrate, for the first time, a well developed α-cluster structure in the proton rich nucleus, 18 Ne. We present the excitation energies and estimates of the spins for the dominant resonances using an R-matrix approach. A resonance at 9.2 MeV excitation energy in 18 Ne is particularly interesting. The spin-parity of the state is found to be 3 − and the α particle reduced width for the state appears to be comparable to

more »

... he single particle limit. We have found indications for unusually large size of the observed α-cluster configuration.