We report on the conversion of the Manitoba II mass spectrometer into a versatile low-energy proton beam facility. This infrastructure is adaptable to any detector-under-test (DUT), and has proven itself effective with the characterization of silicon detectors used in subatomic beyond-the-StandardModel (BSM) searches, namely the Nab experiment. A pencil beam of monoenergetic protons can be produced in a range from 25 keV to 35 keV, achieving a beamcurrent of ~1x10-18 A. Electrostatic steering plates were constructed to direct the Gaussian-profile proton beam over a 117mm diameter areaof-interest with full-width at half-maxima (FWHM) ranging from 0.6 mm to 1.26 mm. This work discusses the modifications and subsequent tests to confirm the beam specifications met the demands of the aforementioned detectors.
@article{arxiv.2510.03654,
title = {A Novel, Steerable, Low-Energy Proton Source for Detector Characterization},
author = {Nicholas Macsai and August Mendelsohn and David Harrison and Russell Mammei and Michael Gericke and Leah Broussard and Erick Smith and Grant Riley and Glenn Randall and Mark Makela},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.03654},
year = {2026}
}