Solid material evaporation into an ECR source by laser ablation.

摘要

In an effort to explore new methods of producing ion beams from solid materials, we are attempting to develop a laser-ablation technique for evaporating materials directly into an ECR ion source plasma. A pulsed NdYAG laser with approximately 25 watts average power and peak power density on the order of 10(sup 7) W/cm(sup 2) has been used off-line to measure ablation rates of various materials as a function of peak laser power. The benefits anticipated from the successful demonstration of this technique include the ability to use very small quantities of materials efficiently, improved material efficiency of incorporation into the ECR plasma, and decoupling of the material evaporation process from the ECR source tuning operation. Here we report on the results of these tests and describe the design for incorporating such a system directly with the ATLAS PII-ECR ion source.