A hollow cathode ion source as an electron‐beam ion source injector for metallic elements

A hollow cathode ion source (HCIS) has been developed in our Laboratory to produce, by cathodic sputtering in a glow discharge, a one charge metallic ion beam. This source is used as an injector for the electron‐beam ion source (EBIS) Dione that produce, after ion stripping, a highly charged heavy‐ion beam for acceleration in Mimas–Saturne synchrotrons. Due to the good pulse‐to‐pulse repeatability of the HCIS, the very long lifetime of the cathode (several months), as well as the very good value of the normalized emittance (enorm=4×10−9 π mrad), this source appears as an ideal EBIS injector for metallic and gaseous elements. In this paper we report the description of the HCIS and the experimental results achieved, after injection in the EBIS, by the production of heavy‐ion beams like Fe20+, Au50+, and U55+ (from 4×107 to 9×106 ions/cycle).