Abstract
The gas in the drift tube is ionized by the microwave (2–10 GHz) power induced by the beam-plasma interactions since a magnetically focused electron beam injected into a drift tube from an ion extractor interacts strongly with the plasma. Therefore, a high density plasma is effectively generated in the drift tube by the beam-plasma discharge. A well-confined and high-intensity ion beam can be extracted because of the neutralization of the injected beam near the extractor. When the extracted ion current increases, the high density plasma then generated is stable in density because of a feedback phenomenon in which the beam-plasma interactions keep the plasma density constant. Some dynamic characteristics are reported. As a special application, a new type of ion micro-analyzer with an electron beam guiding function by using the ion source of a similar structure is proposed.