Numerical model of electron cyclotron resonance ion source

Abstract

Important features of the electron cyclotron resonance ion source (ECRIS) operation are accurately reproduced with a numerical code. The code uses the particle-in-cell technique to model the dynamics of ions in ECRIS plasma. It is shown that a gas dynamical ion confinement mechanism is sufficient to provide the ion production rates in ECRIS close to the experimentally observed values. Extracted ion currents are calculated and compared to the experiment for a few sources. Changes in the simulated extracted ion currents are obtained with varying the gas flow into the source chamber and the microwave power. Empirical scaling laws for ECRIS design are studied and the underlying physical effects are discussed.