Formation of high-intensity axially symmetric and ribbon beams of low-energy metal ions.

Low-energy metal ion beams are of considerable interest in developing a high-intensity implantation method that modifies the elemental composition, microstructure, and properties of various materials at depths many times exceeding the projective range of ions. This study presents the results of experiments on plasma-immersion formation followed by spherical and cylindrical ballistic focusing of aluminum and titanium ion beams. The features of the formation, transport, and ballistic focusing of an ion beam are discussed based on the parameters of the vacuum-arc plasma, conditions of its preliminary injection into the drift space and beam focusing, amplitude, duration, and frequency of the bias potential pulses. The optimal conditions to form high-intensity beams of metal ions purified from the macroparticle debris of a vacuum-arc with a current of higher than 1 A and a current density of up to 0.5 A/cm2 are determined.

Ballistic formation of high-intensity low-energy gas ion beams.

The development of the method of high-intensity implantation of low-energy ions requires the design of an efficient system for generating high-intensity ion beams of various elements with a current density of tens and hundreds of milliamperes per square centimeter with ion energies not exceeding some kiloelectronvolt. This paper considers the regularities of formation of high-intensity beams of nitrogen ions and argon and mixed beams of argon and hydrogen ions in spherical and cylindrical grid systems with ballistic focusing of the ion beam. The studies were carried out with the plasma-immersion formation of repetitively pulsed ion beams with duration from units to hundreds of microseconds and a pulse frequency of up to 105 pulses/s with negative bias potentials in the range from 0.6 to 3 kV. The possibility of stable formation of gas ion beams with an ion current density of up to 0.7 A/cm2 is demonstrated.