Low microdivergence medium-mass ion beam produced from a N2O cryogenic diode

Medium-mass ion beams including nitrogen and oxygen were produced from a cryogenic diode with N 2 O ice as the ion source. The nominal diode voltage was 300-400 kV, and the peak ion current was 240 A. The beam divergence angle was measured with a five-aperture time-integrated pinhole camera. The five camera images were analyzed to estimate the spatial distribution of the beam source divergence angle along the anode radius, yielding a value of 5-6 mrad for the average microdivergence. This is low enough for this ion source to be studied further in the near future. If possible, we want to consider this as one of the probable candidate ion sources for ion beam drivers for future inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and inertial fusion energy (IFE) applications.