Hydrogen electron cyclotron resonance ion sources plasma characterization based on simple optical emission spectroscopy

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a simple optical emission spectroscopy method for basic plasma diagnostics in a hydrogen electron cyclotron resonance ion source, enabling easy optimization of operational parameters despite limited accuracy.

Contribution

The authors introduce a low-cost, straightforward optical emission spectroscopy technique for plasma characterization in a compact hydrogen ion source, simplifying diagnostic procedures.

Findings

Effective plasma luminescence observation through diffraction grating

Easy determination of optimal RF power, frequency, and hydrogen flow

Method provides basic plasma diagnostics suitable for ion source operation

Abstract

Hydrogen electron cyclotron resonance ion sources plasma measurements based on simple optical emission spectroscopy on a new compact low current ion source designed and built by the authors is presented. By observing the plasma luminescence both directly and through a low-cost transmission diffraction grating, basic characterization of the Hydrogen plasma obtainable in the ion source is carried out. Through simple processing of CCD captures of these images, optimal values for the ion source relevant operation parameters, including RF power and frequency, and Hydrogen mass flow are easily obtained. Despite the simplicity of the method and its limited accuracy as compared to the use of a full standard optical spectrometric set-up, it is shown that the presented approach can cope with basic plasma diagnostic tasks as far as the successful operation of the ion source is concerned.