Extraction of aberrationless high-perveance ion beams from a quiescent equilibrium plasma

Abstract
A singular solution of the Poisson‐Vlasov equation is approached for ions extracted through a cylindrical bore aperture from an equilibrium quiescent plasma. This solution has emittance‐dominated ion‐beam optics with no significant contribution to beam divergence due to aberrations. The singular point occurs in the limit as the plasmaelectrode potential approaches the sourceplasma potential. Other properties of this condition are that (1) the optimum perveance is significantly higher than for an electrically isolated plasmaelectrode, and (2) the sensitivity to plasma densityfluctuations is higher than for an isolated plasmaelectrode. An additional finding is that an electrically isolated plasmaelectrode produced the highest beam divergence for optimum plasma density but minimum sensitivity to plasma densityfluctuations.

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