Study of the ion plasma flow generated by a high-current vacuum arc

P A Morozov,Yu A Zemskov,R V Emlin,P S Mikhailov,D L Shmelev,I L Muziukin,I F Punanov,I V Uimanov,S A Chaikovsky

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1393/1/012015

Abstract

The vacuum arc discharge is intensively explored for a long time. It acts as a source of multiply charged plasma. The results of the special type plasma gun (5–10 kA, 12 μs) ion flow study with high temporal resolution and the electrode erosion dependences on the amplitude of the current pulse are presented in the research. The ion flow intensity had good reproducibility from series to series, while the values of total mass erosion differ significantly for different series of experiments under the same conditions. The ion erosion was measured to be significantly higher than that for arc sources with currents up to 1 kA.

Highlights

The results of the special type plasma gun (5–10 kA, 12 μs) ion flow study with high temporal resolution and the electrode erosion dependences on the amplitude of the current pulse are presented in the research
The high current pulsed plasma gun investigated in the present work is a special type of ion source
The measurement results show that the plasma torch had an expansion angle up to 45o

Summary

Introduction

The high current pulsed plasma gun investigated in the present work is a special type of ion source. That’s why industrial ion sources based on vacuum arc [1] use long high-current discharge pulses. It is revealed [2], that ion flow parameters of ion sources with common scales (usually dozens of cm) become stable after tens of microseconds. To make a reliable ion source with repetitive stable parameters, it is necessary to use long term (> 100 μs) high-current discharge pulse. The majority of scientific papers are devoted to research and development of ion sources with relatively long current pulses

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion