Study of plasma meniscus including surface produce negative ions by using PIC-MCC simulation

Abstract

In general, a quality of negative ion beam optics is determined by the shape of the plasma meniscus, which is an ion emitting surface. In this study, the key parameters to control the plasma meniscus and relevant physical structure in the electronegative plasma including the surface produced H- ions is investigated by using PIC-MCC simulation. The region from the source plasma up to the accelerator is modeled for a single aperture, and thus, the plasma meniscus can be obtained self-consistently. Parameter survey for the net flux of surface produced H- ion is conducted by varing the numbers of the surface produced H- ion super-particles per timestep in order to investigate the effcet of the electronegativity, that is, the ratio of the negative ion density to the electron density. It is shown that the effective distance d eff, between the plasma meniscus and the extraction grid depends on the electronegativity as well as the plasma density. Especially, the effective distance d eff, decreases with the increase of the electronegativity under the constant plasma density, which means that the shape of the plasma meniscus becomes flat or convex rather than concave. Moreover, it is also verified that the electronegativity affects the H- ion trajectories extracted fromnear theedge of plasma meniscus through the shape of plasma meniscus.