Generation of submilisecond beams of deuterium ions based on a vacuum arc with a gas-saturated zirconium cathode

A vacuum arc discharge with a zirconium cathode saturated with deuterium is used to produce deuterium plasma in thermonuclear reaction studies and to generate deuterium ion beams for accelerator technology applications. This work presents the results of studies of the ion-emission properties of a vacuum arc discharge with durations of hundreds of microseconds using a Zr-deuterated cathode and the discharge parameters responsible for the formation of an ion beam, such as the angular, spatial and energy distribution of ions. A wide-aperture beam of deuterium ions based on this discharge is generated and an experimental study of its parameters is performed. It is shown that under certain conditions the fraction of deuterium ions in the ion beam can by nearly a factor of two exceed that of deuterium atoms in the cathode, reaching 60%.