Magnetically insulated ion diodes for synthesis of advanced materials

Magnetically insulated ion diode technology has been used to generate intense ion beams. We have used such beams to form ablation plasmas from solid targets. Initial experiments have studied congruent deposition of complex stoichiometric thin films. Typical ion diode parameters are 400 kV and 50 kA ion beams over a pulse length of 0.5--1.0 μs. Diode operation has been modeled with 2.5-D particle-in-cell simulations. These calculations allow us to unfold the dynamics of electron flow, ion flow, and their interactions to recover time-dependent impedance behavior which is in good agreement with data. Transport of the dense ion flow through an extraction section of the diode requires a high degree of charge neutralization. Self-consistent neutralization dynamics have been modeled with the simulations. We present the latest numerical results and compare them with data from the ongoing experiments