A low power low cost 2.45 GHz ECRIS for the production of multiply charged ions

A low cost, low power ECR ion source designed for the use on a high voltage platform with limited electrical power available, has been developed. To reduce the power consumption of the source the radial and axial magnetic confinement are produced entirely by permanent magnets. An axial magnetic mirror ratio of 2.7 is obtained by a configuration of two times four block magnets. A radial magnetic field of 0.5 T inside the plasma chamber of 60 mm inner diameter is produced by a hexapole magnet. Microwave power up to 300 watts c/w can be applied to the plasma by using different slow-wave structures which allow the use of a plasma chamber much smaller in diameter than required by the wavelength of the used frequency of 2.45 GHz. The ion source can be operated in different modes either for producing multiply charged ions with intensities up to several hundred e·A or for the production of high intensity beams of singly charged ions, i.e. 6.5 mA of He⁺. Applications for the ion source are in crossed beams experiments and as injectors for small accelerators as well as for spectroscopic investigations in the VUV wavelength region