PIG Ion Source

A Penning Ionization Gauge (PIG) ion source [1] is used for the offline production of metal beams for BECOLA experiments. Fig. 1 shows the cross-section of the PIG ion source. The source consists of a central anode with a pure/alloy cathode disk and anticathode disks, which contains the metal to be studied. The cylindrical magnet produces axially symmetric magnetic field of B=500 G through the center of the anode and cathodes held at +150V and -400 V respectively. A plasma is formed with an Ar-buffer gas and the sputtered off components of the cathodes are ionized by the fast-electrons within the plasma. The ions are typically extracted at an energy of 30 keV.

Figure 1: Schematic view of the BECOLA PIG ion source.

[1] C. A. Ryder et al., Spectrochimica Acta Part B 113, 16 (2015); Z. Nouri, R. , R.A. Holt, and S.D. Rosner, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 614, 174 (2010).