On the use of magnetic buckets for ion beam profile tailoring

Abstract

Magnetic multipole plasma confinement geometries employing permanent magnet “buckets” are used extensively for a range of laboratory plasma applications. Among the several consequences for plasma confinement is the important result that the plasma can acquire a more-or-less flat density profile, which when embodied in an ion source, can also lead to a flat profile for the extracted ion beam. For many applications a uniform ion beam current density profile is quite advantageous, for example, for carrying out large-area ion implantation. There are, however, inherent limitations on the extent to which this approach to beam “homogenization” can be utilized, and even for a perfectly flat profile in the immediate postextraction region, the beam will evolve toward Gaussian as it propagates downstream. Here we describe the rare-earth permanent magnet bucket that we have incorporated into our broad-beam vacuum arc ion source, and its effect on the beam profile at the extractor and downstream. The experimental results are compared with a simple model for the beam profile evolution with axial distance. We find that the beam loses memory of its initially flat profile and relaxes to a more-or-less Gaussian shape in a relatively short axial distance ∼w/4θ, where w is the initial width of the flat beam profile and θ is the beamlet divergence half angle.