ISSN:
1089-7550
Source:
AIP Digital Archive
Topics:
Physics
Notes:
We have developed a high-purity, intense, lithium ion beam source which operates at 500 kV and 120 A/cm2 with pulse widths of 125 ns full width half maximum. The beams were generated using a lithium chloride anode in planar magnetically insulated geometry. We have found that the combination of vacuum baking of the anode at 250 °C followed by the application of 100 W of pure argon, steady-state, glow discharge cleaning reduced the impurity concentration in the beam to approximately 10% (components other than chlorine or lithium were considered impurities). Although the impurities were low, the concentration of chlorine in the 1+ and 2+ charge states was significant (∼25%). The remaining 65% of the beam consisted of Li+ ions. Without the special cleaning process, over half the beam particles were impurities. It was determined that these impurities entered the beam at the anode surface but came originally from material in the vacuum chamber. After the cleaning process, recontamination was observed to occur in approximately 6 min. This long recontamination time, which was much greater than the expected monolayer formation time, was attributed to the elevated temperature of the anode. We also compared the electrical characteristics of the beams produced by LiCl anodes to those generated by a standard polyethylene proton source. In contrast to the polyethylene anode, the LiCl source exhibited a higher impedance, produced beams of lower ion current efficiency and had longer turn on times.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.349260
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