The operation of a uniformly insulated extraction applied-B ion diode

Abstract

We present the first experimental results of a uniformly insulated extraction applied-B ion diode. The diode typically attained beam generating efficiencies of 70% at the time of peak beam power. This is a significant improvement over previous extraction applied-B ion diodes, demonstrating the importance of uniform insulation as suggested by theory [J. Appl. Phys. 59, 2685 (1986)]. Furthermore, we found that the beam current is nearly independent of the ion-emitting area down to a minimum area. At the minimum area, the beam current density was enhanced by 150 times the monopolar Child–Langmuir value. This data supports a recently proposed theory [Phys. Rev. Lett. 59, 2295 (1987)] that predicts large enhancements due to the electron diamagnetic effect on the virtual cathode.