Diagnostics of highly charged plasmas with multicomponent 1+ ion injection

Abstract

We establish multicomponent 1+ injection into a charge breeder electron cyclotron resonance ion source and an associated computational procedure as a noninvasive probe of the electron density ne, average electron energy ⟨Ee⟩, and the characteristic times of ionization, charge exchange, and ion confinement of stochastically heated, highly charged plasma. Multicomponent injection allows refining the ne, ⟨Ee⟩ ranges, reducing experimental uncertainty. Na/K injection is presented as a demonstration. The ⟨Ee⟩ and ne of a hydrogen discharge are found to be 600+600−300eV and 8+8−3×1011cm−3, respectively. The ionization, charge exchange, and confinement times of high charge state alkali ions are on the order of 1 ms–10 ms.