The principles of a new method of determining ion beam profile density distribution

The theoretical basis of a technique to determine the spatial density flux distribution in non-uniform ion beams is described. The technique relies on the mapping of the flux distribution into fluence collected distributions when the flux is translated at variable prescribed velocity relative to a series of ion collectors. The method determines the spatial moments of the flux distribution and does not require collector dimensions to be small with respect to the ion beam profile dimensions. (author)