Low energy metal ion beam source

Summary form only given. A high-current metal ion source has been developed in which a metal vapor vacuum arc is used as the plasma discharge mechanism, by means of which high-current beams of a wide range of multiply charged metal ions can be produced. Operating the source in a mode suitable for very-low-energy beam formation, in the approximate range of 100 eV to 2 keV, which might be useful for ion-beam-assisted deposition and other plasma processing applications, has been investigated. The beam formation electrodes (extractor grids) were reconfigured to work in an almost-symmetric accelerating-decelerating potential arrangement. In preliminary tests, an accelerating voltage that was limited to just 4 kV was used, and a titanium ion beam with a current of up to 100 mA at 1.5-kV net beam voltage was produced. It is anticipated that low-energy metal ion beams with current up to the 1-A level should be obtainable with an optimized grid spacing and an accelerating voltage of 10-20 kV