Vacuum arc ion source with compound cathode and beam separation by bending magnet

The paper reports on a mass-charge spectrometry study of ion beams extracted from the plasma of a vacuum arc discharge with a compound lanthanum hexaboride cathode. The elemental composition of the ion beams was analyzed using a magnetic separator. The vacuum arc operated in repetitive pulsed mode with a current amplitude of 140 A, full width at the base of ~350 μs, and frequency of 2 Hz. The ion-extracting dc voltage was 20 kV. The absolute currents of B
⁺
, B
²⁺
, and B
³⁺
ions were several hundred microamperes. The extraction of mono-element B ion beams with a low energy spread from the plasma of a vacuum arc is attractive for use in ion beam boriding technologies.