Experimental Studies of Ion Beam Neutralization: Preliminary Results

A testing platform is designed to study ion beam neutralization in the mesothermal, collisionless region. In the experimental setup, argon neutrals were ionized in a microwave cavity and accelerated by a plasma lens system which was biased to 2500 V above the system ground. Electrons were boiled off from two hot tungsten filaments to neutralize the ion beam. The plasma is diagnosed using Langmuir probe and Faraday probe. A 3-D traversing system and a complete data acquisition loop were developed to efficiently measure 3-D beam profile. Preliminary measurements of beam profiles are presented for different operating conditions.