Liquid metal ion source assembly for external ion injection into an electron string ion source (ESIS).

An assembly for a commercial Ga(+) liquid metal ion source in combination with an ion transportation and focusing system, a pulse high-voltage quadrupole deflector, and a beam diagnostics system has been constructed in the framework of the iThemba LABS (Cape Town, South Africa)-JINR (Dubna, Russia) collaboration. First, results on Ga(+) ion beam commissioning will be presented. Outlook of further experiments for measurements of charge breeding efficiency in the electron string ion source with the use of external injection of Ga(+) and Au(+) ion beams will be reported as well.