Investigation of bremsstrahlung emission in an electron cyclotron resonance ion source and its dependence on the magnetic confinement

TL;DR

This study uses Monte Carlo simulations to analyze bremsstrahlung x-ray emission in an electron cyclotron resonance ion source, revealing how magnetic confinement parameters influence the spectral temperature and hot electron populations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed simulation-based analysis of bremsstrahlung emission dependence on magnetic confinement in ECRIS, including mechanisms generating hot electrons.

Findings

Spectral temperature Ts agrees with previous experimental data.

Ts depends on the minimum magnetic field Bmin, but not on the ion extraction peak field Bext.

Mechanisms for hot electron generation are elucidated through high-statistics MC simulations.

Abstract

A Monte Carlo (MC) code is used to investigate the bremsstrahlung x-ray emission of an electron cyclotron resonance ion source (ECRIS) and its dependence on the axial magnetic confinement. The x-ray spectral temperature Ts measured with the simulations is in fair agreement with previous experiments. The dependence of Ts on the minimum magnetic field of the configuration Bmin is corroborated, also observing that the ion extraction peak field Bext has no influence on temperature. Details on the mechanism generating the hot electron population responsible for the change in spectral x-ray temperature as a function of Bmin are proposed, based on an in-depth investigation of the electron population with the MC code using a high statistics.