English

A compact low energy proton source

Instrumentation and Detectors 2023-10-04 v1 Plasma Physics

Abstract

A low energy proton source for non-neutral plasma experiments was developed. Electrons from a hot filament ionize H2_2 gas inside a geometrically compensated Penning trap to produce protons via dissociative ionization. A rotating wall electric field destabilizes the unwanted H2+_2^+ and H3+_3^+ generated in the process while concentrating protons at the center of the trap. The source produces bunches of protons with relatively low ion contamination (5.5% H2+_2^+ and 15.5% H3+_3^+), with energy tunable from 35 to 300 eV.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2306.09003,
  title  = {A compact low energy proton source},
  author = {A. Weiser and A. Lanz and E. D. Hunter and M. C. Simon and E. Widmann and D. J. Murtagh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.09003},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:05:46.757Z