Intense beam production with ECR ion sources

Abstract

Electron cyclotron resonance ion sources are now able to attain a beam current as high as some milliamperes, which until a few years ago was obtained only for pulsed laser ion sources with a much higher emittance and energy spread, by keeping also the possibility to produce high charge states close to electron beam ion sources, at much higher intensity. They usually operate at frequencies up to 18 GHz, but now many sources are able to operate or will be able, at 28 GHz frequency or more, with plasma density of the order of 10 13 cm −3 , much higher than any other source of the previous generation. The state-of-the-art technique will be described along with the major characteristics of the upcoming sources.