A design study for a holey-plate structure surface-wave ion source

Abstract

A low-pressure and high-density microwave ion source, created and sustained by a surface wave, using a partial-coaxial cavity resonator has been newly developed for the production of stable beams from gaseous feed materials. This source is called a holey-plate surface-wave ion source. A microwave of 2.45 GHz is supplied from a holey plate which is made from a 0.5 mm thick stainless steel sheet with 4 mm diameter and 5 mm pitch holes to a plasma production chamber of 40 mm diameter and 11 mm in length. An 18-mm-diameter argon ion beam is extracted and accelerated from the ion source. The ion current densities are in excess of 6 mA/cm2 at an extraction voltage of 1 kV and at microwave powers of less than 100 W.