Intense Ion Beam Generation By The "Point Pinch Diode" With Hemispherical Mesh Cathode

Intense ion beams are generated in the "Point Pinch Diode" which consists of a spherical cathode and a flat anode. These intense ion beams contain significant amounts of highly ionized metallic ions which are produced from anode materials. However only small part of the ion beams can be extracted to the outside of the diode, because the ions have to pass through a small aperture located on the top of the spherical cathode. Therefore we tried ion beam generation using the "Point Pinch Diode" with a hemispherical mesh cathode in order to obtain larger currents at the outside of the diode. The experimental results show that highly ionized copper ions (e.g. Cu/sup 4+/ Cu/sup 5+/) are also detected with the hemispherical mesh cathode. The current of the ion beam measured at the outside of the diode increased up to 6.5 kA. This value is an order of magnitude larger than that previously obtained with the spherical cathode, and also corresponds to the high current density of 90 kA/ CM/sup 2/ in the diode.