High Charge State Ions Extracted from Metal Plasmas in the Transition Regime from Vacuum Spark to High Current Vacuum Arc

Conference · Thu Jun 19 00:00:00 EDT 2008

OSTI ID:938414

Yushkov, Georgy Yu; Anders, A

Metal ions were extracted from pulsed discharge plasmas operating in the transition region between vacuum spark (transient high voltage of kV) and vacuum arc (arc voltage ~;; 20 V). At a peak current of about 4 kA, and with a pulse duration of 8 ?s, we observed mean ion charges states of about 6 for several cathode materials. In the case of platinum, the highest average charge state was 6.74 with ions of charge states as high as 10 present. For gold we found traces of charge state 11, with the highest average charge state of 7.25. At currents higher than 5 kA, non-metallic contaminations started to dominate the ion beam, preventing further enhancement of the metal charge states.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Accelerator& Fusion Research Division
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 938414
• Report Number(s): LBNL-622E; TRN: US0901797
• Resource Relation: Conference: XXIIIrd Int. Symp. on Discharges and Electrical Insulation in Vacuum, Bucharest, Romania, Sept. 15-19, 2008
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70
CATHODES
CHARGE STATES
ELECTRICAL INSULATION
GOLD
ION BEAMS
PLATINUM
vacuum arcs
vacuum spark
plasma
ion charge states