Demonstration of High-Efficiency Microwave Heating Producing Record Highly Charged Xenon Ion Beams with Superconducting ECR Ion Sources

Abstract

Intense highly charged ion beam production is essential for high-power heavy ion accelerators. A novel movable Vlasov launcher for superconducting high charge state Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source has been devised that can affect the microwave power effectiveness by a factor of about 4 in terms of highly charged ion beam production. This approach based on a dedicated microwave launching system instead of the traditional coupling scheme has led to new insight on microwave-plasma interaction. With this new understanding, the world record highly charged xenon ion beam currents have been enhanced by up to a factor of 2, which could directly and significantly enhance the performance of heavy ion accelerators and provide many new research opportunities in nuclear physics, atomic physics and other disciplines.

References in corpus (4)

• Spatial distributions of plasma potential and density in electron cyclotron resonance ion source
• Three-dimensional modelling of processes in Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source
• Development and validation of the numerical model of Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources
• Numerical investigations of the minimum-B effect in Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source