Split Magnet for Efficient Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources Developments

The development of high performance Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources (ECRIS) greatly depends on the feasibility of sophisticated magnetic structures with high field gradients. The most powerful ECRIS are based on superconducting technologies. The application of high magnetic field techniques like split polyhelices permits to build low cost prototypes with a short development time, this is a key issue to develop a Research and Development program in ion sources science. We describe here the first ECRIS cusp prototype we have built with this technology. A 5 T field gradient on a 90 mm distance have been measured on the main axis of the helices for a 15000 A current intensity applied. This contribution summarizes the latest experimental achievements with the split polyhelix magnetic structure.