Plasma-Immersion Formation of High-Intensity Ion Beams

Abstract

For the first time, the possibility of forming high-intensity beams of low-energy metal and gas ions is demonstrated experimentally. The use of a hybrid system for ion-beam formation including plasmaimmersion extraction and ion acceleration and their subsequent ballistic focusing in an equipotential space with neutralization of the space charge of the beam made possible the pulse-periodic formation of titanium and nitrogen ion beams with an ion-current density of more than 1 A/cm² and a pulsed power density of 2.6 kW/cm².