Low energy highly charged ion beam facility at Inter University Accelerator Centre: Measurement of the plasma potential and ion energy distributions

A deceleration lens coupled to one of the beam lines of the electron cyclotron resonance based low energy beam facility at Inter University Accelerator Centre is reported. This system is capable of delivering low energy (2.5 eV/q–1 keV/q) highly charged ion beams. The presence of plasma potential hinders the measurements of low energies (<50 eV), therefore, plasma potential measurements have been undertaken using a retarding plate analyzer in unison with the deceleration assembly. The distributions of the ion energies have been obtained and the effect of different source parameters on these distributions is studied