Effect of the two-close-frequency heating to the extracted ion beam and to the X-ray flux emitted by the ECR plasma

Multiple frequency heating has been used since the '90 in ECR ion sources as heating schemes able to improve current intensities especially for highly charged ions. More recently "Two Close Frequency Heating", where the frequency gap is comparable with the scale-length of the resonance, has been proposed, expected also to be sensitive to the relative waves' phase relationship. At ATOMKI—Debrecen a dedicated experiment has been carried out for exploring the effects of the combined frequencies and their relative phase-difference in an argon plasma. The second frequency was finely tuned between 13.6–14.6 GHz with respect to the first one (fixed 14.25 GHz). An optimal frequency gap (in terms of Ar¹¹⁺/Ar⁶⁺ beam currents ratios) has been experimentally found, in agreement with the theory; the optimal power balance (total RF power was 200 W) between the two frequencies has been determined empirically. A weak but clear effect of the relative phase shift has been observed. Each configuration has been characterized by a multi-diagnostics setup: HPGe and SDD detectors were used for the X-rays, a RF probe was introduced inside the plasma chamber to detect the radio-emission from the plasma.