Ionization and charge dispersion in electron cyclotron resonance ion sources

Abstract

Based on a nonlinear algebraic set of equations the ionization processes and charge dispersion of ions in electron cyclotron resonance ion sources are calculated. The calculation considers single and double ionization processes as well as single and double charge exchange processes. It is shown that the dominating factor for the charge distribution of the ions is the temperature of the ions. So the fundamental way to increase the output of highly charged ions should be to increase the temperature of the electrons and to reduce the temperature of the ions by cooling processes. Since the densities of neutral atoms and electrons are strongly correlated to each other the ion charge distribution is not affected by the densities of electrons and neutral atoms.