Study of the characteristics of the system: Ion source-ion decelerator

The features of the method for the formation of dense low-energy ion beams in the system consisting of ion source-ion decelerator are considered. According to this method, a wide ion beam is formed using an ion source with an ion energy of 500 eV and higher, and then the ions are decelerated just before landing on the substrate surface by an electric field created in the ion decelerator. In the considered ion decelerator, the electric field that slows down the ions is created in a gas discharge in E × B fields due to the Hall effect. The decelerated electrode imitating the substrate is located in the field of action of a magnetic field with an induction of 0.45 T. The ion decelerator is characterized as a Hall magnetohydrodynamic converter of the ion beam kinetic energy into electrical energy. The analysis of plasma processes in the converter has been carried out on the basis of the model of the ion-vacuum regime of a discharge in E × B fields for estimating the expected properties of the converter and their verification based on experimental results. In experiments, an ion source of the Kaufman type formed an argon ion beam with a density of 0.5-2 mA/cm² and ion energy of 300-1500 eV was used. The voltage-current characteristics of the converter are given. The ratio of electron and ion components of the current in the circuit of the decelerated electrode was determined when the beam space charge neutralizer in the form of a heated filament was switched on and off. Using a Langmuir probe and a thermionic probe, the distributions of the ion beam current density and the potential of the plasma surrounding the ion beam in the beam transport space has been studied. A significant influence of the potential of the decelerator electrode on the plasma potential in the region of ion beam transport is shown. The features of the discharge in a specific design of the ion decelerator for a deceleration degree of ions to an energy of 50-75 eV are revealed.