Statistical analysis of the ion beam production in a self magnetically insulated diode

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a study on shot to shot variation in energy density of an ion beam formed by a self-magnetically insulated diode with an explosive emission cathode. The experiments were carried out with the TEMP-4M accelerator operating in double-pulse mode: plasma formation occurs during the first pulse (negative polarity, 300–500 ns, 100–150 kV), and ion extraction and acceleration during the second pulse (positive polarity, 150 ns, 250–300 kV). Crucially, it was found that the standard deviation of energy density does not exceed 11%, whilst the same variation for ion current density was 20%–30%, suggesting the presence of neutrals in the beam. This idea is further supported by the fact that ion current density is only weakly dependant on the accelerating voltage and other output parameters of the accelerator (coefficient of determination < 0.3), whilst the correlation between the energy density of the beam and the output parameters is strong (coefficient of determination > 0.9). We attribute the neutral component as being due to charge exchange between accelerated ions and neutral molecules from a neutral layer near the anode surface. Implementation using a self-magnetically insulated diode with an explosive-emission cathode, having an operational lifetime of up to 107 shots, has promising prospects for various technological applications.