Eine Methode zur Erzeugung von Strahlen negativer Ionen

A new method for the production of beams of negative ions to be injected into a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator is presented. Negative ions of a desired species are produced by impact of noble gas ions with molecules of a gas containing this element, and are then collected and bent into a beam with high efficiency. For example, a beam of negative fluorine ions has been obtained by bombardment of boron fluoride with 30 keV krypton ions, resulting in a current of 0·5 μA of F⁺⁺⁺⁺ at the target. The original ion source of the tandem has been used with this modified procedure. The krypton gas has been fed into the duoplasmatron and the boron fluoride into the charge exchange channel. No damage to the ion source system has been observed, even in this case. This method has also been applied to nitrogen and oxygen with good results. Some measurements are reported, and a brief discussion of the basic process of the method is given.