Fourth generation electron cyclotron resonance ion sources.

The concepts and technical challenges related to developing a fourth generation electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source with a rf frequency greater than 40 GHz and magnetic confinement fields greater than twice B(ECR) will be explored in this article. Based on the semiempirical frequency scaling of ECR plasma density with the square of operating frequency, there should be significant gains in performance over current third generation ECR ion sources, which operate at rf frequencies between 20 and 30 GHz. While the third generation ECR ion sources use NbTi superconducting solenoid and sextupole coils, the new sources will need to use different superconducting materials, such as Nb(3)Sn, to reach the required magnetic confinement, which scales linearly with rf frequency.

Simulation and beamline experiments for the superconducting electron cyclotron resonance ion source VENUS.

The particle-in-cell code WARP has been enhanced to incorporate both two- and three-dimensional sheath extraction models giving WARP the capability of simulating entire ion beam transport systems including the extraction of beams from plasma sources. In this article, we describe a method of producing initial ion distributions for plasma extraction simulations in electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion sources based on experimentally measured sputtering on the source biased disk. Using this initialization method, we present preliminary results for extraction and transport simulations of an oxygen beam and compare them with experimental beam imaging on a quartz viewing plate for the superconducting ECR ion source VENUS.