paper

A compact low energy proton source

arXiv:2306.09003 · doi:10.1063/5.0162339

Abstract

A low energy proton source for non-neutral plasma experiments was developed. Electrons from a hot filament ionize H $_{2}$ gas inside a geometrically compensated Penning trap to produce protons via dissociative ionization. A rotating wall electric field destabilizes the unwanted H $_{2}^{+}$ and H $_{3}^{+}$ generated in the process while concentrating protons at the center of the trap. The source produces bunches of protons with relatively low ion contamination (5.5% H $_{2}^{+}$ and 15.5% H $_{3}^{+}$ ), with energy tunable from 35 to 300 eV.