Characterization of plasma parameters, first beam results, and status of electron cyclotron resonance source

Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma source at 50 keV, 30 mA proton current has been designed, fabricated, and assembled. Its plasma study has been done. Plasma chamber was excited with 350 W of microwave power at 2450 MHz, along with nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Microwave power was fed to the plasma chamber through waveguide. Plasma density and electron temperature were studied under various operating conditions, such as magnetic field, gas pressure, and transversal distance. Langmuir probe was used for plasma characterization using current-voltage variation. The nitrogen plasma density calculated was approximately 4.5x1011 cm-3, and electron temperatures of 3-10 eV (cold) and 45-85 eV (hot) were obtained. The total ion beam current of 2.5 mA was extracted, with two-electrode extraction geometry, at 15 keV beam energy. The optimization of the source is under progress to extract 30 mA proton beam current at 50 keV beam energy, using three-electrode extraction geometry. This source will be used as an injector to continuous wave radio frequency quadrupole, a part of 100 MeV proton linac. The required root-mean-square normalized beam emittance is less than 0.2π mm mrad. This article presents the study of plasma parameters, first beam results, and status of ECR proton source