Measurement of total ion current from vacuum arc plasma sources

Computing plasma focus pinch current from total current measurement

The total current Itotal waveform in a plasma focus discharge is the most commonly measured quantity, contrasting with the difficult measurement of Ipinch. However, yield laws should be scaled to focus pinch current Ipinch rather than the peak Itotal. This paper describes how Ipinch may be computed from the Itotal trace by fitting a computed current trace to the measured current trace using the...

Temporal development of ion beam mean charge state in pulsed vacuum arc ion sources.

Vacuum arc ion sources, commonly also known as "Mevva" ion sources, are used to generate intense pulsed metal ion beams. It is known that the mean charge state of the ion beam lies between 1 and 4, depending on cathode material, arc current, arc pulse duration, presence or absence of magnetic field at the cathode, as well as background gas pressure. A characteristic of the vacuum arc ion beam i...

Plasma instability of a vacuum arc centrifuge.

Ever since conception of the vacuum arc centrifuge in 1980, periodic fluctuations in the ion saturation current and floating potential have been observed in Langmuir probe measurements in the rotation region of a vacuum arc centrifuge. In this work we develop a linearized theoretical model to describe a range of instabilities in the vacuum arc centrifuge plasma column, and then test the validit...

An interchangeable-cathode vacuum arc plasma source.

A simplified vacuum arc design [based on metal vapor vacuum arc (MeVVA) concepts] is employed as a plasma source for a study of a (7)Be non-neutral plasma. The design includes a mechanism for interchanging the cathode source. Testing of the plasma source showed that it is capable of producing on the order of 10(12) charges at confinable energies using a boron-carbide disk as the cathode target....

Ion velocities in direct current arc plasma generated from compound cathodes211102