Production of intense short-pulse ion beams in a system with microsecond inductive storage and a plasma-erosion opening switch

Experiments on the production of nanosecond-length ion beams in an accelerator with a plasma-erosion opening switch are reported. This switch made it possible to reduce the length of the voltage pulse from 2 μs to 50--70 ns. The maximum energy of the ion beam was 6 kJ at a voltage of 2.5 MeV. The relative efficiency of the ion production was epsilon-c/sub i/ = I/sub i//(I/sub i/+I/sub e/) = 0.4--0.5. The efficiency in terms of the energy in the inductive store was 10--15%