Universal main magnetic focus ion source: A new tool for laboratory research of astrophysics and Tokamak microplasma

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new room-temperature ion source capable of producing atomic ions across a wide energy range, useful for laboratory astrophysics and Tokamak microplasma research, with significantly improved efficiency over existing sources.

Contribution

The development of a versatile main magnetic focus ion source that operates at room temperature and surpasses existing EBITs in efficiency for laboratory astrophysics applications.

Findings

Achieved electron beam current density of ~20 kA/cm² at 10 keV.

Demonstrated electron density of ~10^{14} cm^{-3} at 60 keV.

Significantly higher efficiency compared to existing EBITs.

Abstract

A novel room-temperature ion source for the production of atomic ions in electron beam within wide ranges of electron energy and current density is developed. The device can operate both as conventional Electron Beam Ion Source/Trap (EBIS/T) and novel Main Magnetic Focus Ion Source. The ion source is suitable for generation of the low-, medium- and high-density microplasma in steady state, which can be employed for investigation of a wide range of physical problems in ordinary university laboratory, in particular, for microplasma simulations relevant to astrophysics and ITER reactor. For the electron beam characterized by the incident energy $E_e = 10$ keV, the current density $j_e \sim 20$ kA/cm$^2$ and the number density $n_e \sim 2 \times 10^{13}$ cm$^{-3}$ were achieved experimentally. For $E_e \sim 60$ keV, the value of electron number density $n_e \sim 10^{14}$ cm$^{-3}$ is feasible. The efficiency of the novel ion source for laboratory astrophysics significantly exceeds that of other existing warm and superconducting EBITs. A problem of the K-shell electron ionization of heavy and superheavy elements is also discussed.