Stephane Melanson

A typical method to produce negative ion beams uses alkali vapour as a medium for a double charge exchange to convert incident positive (1+) beams to negative (1-) beams. Alkali vapours pose a problem in ion production as they are flammable, explosive and cause vacuum surface contamination. Thus, it is advantageous to use non-metallic vapours for c...

The TRIUMF licensed H ⁻ ion source is known to produce 15 mA of H ⁻ ions, but some applications, such as cyclotrons, require the injection of both positive and negative ions. Furthermore, when using a tandem accelerator, there would be a benefit in using an ion source that can directly extract H ⁻ and He ⁺ . A charge exchange chamber would only hav...

Negative ion beam applications in tandem accelerators are used for nuclear research, environmental studies, materials analysis, medical treatments, and ion implantation in semiconductor devices. Conventional methods for generating negative ions for tandem accelerators rely on metallic vapors (typically alkali) for charge exchange, which pose challe...

Filament driven plasma sources are widely used to produce ion beams, but they require frequent maintenance due to the limited filament lifetime. External radio-frequency (RF) coupled ion source offers a filament-free plasma and hence better maintenance. However, one of the issues encountered during the development of a planar external RF-powered io...

A Penning ion source test stand has been developed by D-Pace to characterize alpha ion extraction from a helium discharge with variations in: extraction potential up to 15 kV, gas flow rate up to 30 sccm, and magnetic field confinement up to 1.1 Tesla. A brief summary of the Penning ion source design is described. Attempts at extraction of ions lea...

Emittance of the ion beam extracted from an ion source is dependent on the initial focusing action at the plasma sheath. The properties of the plasma sheath is further dependent on the local electric fields and charge densities around the sheath. Experiments are conducted for creating different sets of conditions around the plasma sheath in an H ⁻...

Emittance of the ion beam extracted from an ion source is dependent on the initial focusing action at the plasma sheath. The properties of the plasma sheath is further dependent on the local electric fields and charge densities around the sheath. Experiments are conducted for creating different sets of conditions around the plasma sheath in an H^-^...

A Penning ion source test stand has been developed by D-Pace to characterize alpha ion extraction from a helium discharge with variations in: extraction potential up to 15 kV, gas flow rate up to 30 sccm, and magnetic field confinement up to 1.1 Tesla. A brief summary of the Penning ion source design is described. Attempts at extraction of ions lea...

A plasma sheath inside an ion source has a strong focusing effect on the formation of an ion beam from the plasma. Properties of the beam depend on the shape and location of the plasma sheath inside the source. The most accessible experimental data dependent on the plasma sheath are the beam phase space distribution. Variation of beam emittance is...

D-Pace’s 13.56 MHz Radio Frequency (RF) multi cusp negative ion source uses an Aluminium Nitride (AlN) dielectric window for coupling RF power from an external antenna to the plasma chamber. Ion source operation was limited to low RF power (< 3500 W) due to failures (cracks) occurring on the window during experiments. Such events can cause damages...

Medical cyclotron manufacturers are seeking less-costly and more compact ion sources than Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources (ECRIS) for alpha particle production, which are currently capable of generating beam currents up to 2 mA at energies of 30 keV for axial injection into these cyclotrons. Penning Ion Sources by comparison are relatively...

The Siemens Eclipse (RDS111) cyclotron utilizes an internal Penning Ion Gauge (PIG) ion source to provide the negative hydrogen ions for this 11 MeV PET cyclotron. Siemens worked with D-Pace Inc. to optimize the ion source current and transmission through the cyclotron to the radioisotope targets. The goal was to increase the target current from 12...

Ion implantation requires a high beam current stability to ensure a uniform implantation dose across the wafers. This requires ion sources with a stable extraction system to achieve a high beam current stability. Our goal is to extract 0.5 mA of C2─ with less than 10 glitches per hour, with a glitch defined as any variation greater than +/- 5% of t...

D-Pace's volume production multicusp ion source utilizes dipole magnetic fields inside the plasma chamber to filter out energetic electrons that lead to the destruction of negative ions inside the source. The ion source uses the same magnetic field for the extraction of negative hydrogen and deuterium ions. The amount of deuterium ions extracted fr...

D-Pace’s 13.56 MHz RF powered H− ion source, a hybrid design between the TRIUMF licensed filament powered volume-cusp ion source1 and the University of Jyväskylä licensed RF ion source2, has been shown to be less efficient than the filament powered ion source, even though both sources use the same body and extraction system3. The difference is thou...

D-Pace's multicusp ion source achieves high beam currents for negative hydrogen ions in both the TRIUMF-licensed filament-powered ion source (~18 mA) and the University of Jyväskylä-licensed RF-powered ion source (~8 mA). It is well known that ion sources producing negative deuterium ions achieve lower beam currents compared to similar negative hyd...

A beam profiler called the Universal Beam Monitor (UniBEaM) has been developed by D-Pace Inc. (Canada) and the Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Laboratory for High Energy Physics, University of Bern (Switzerland). The device is based on passing 100 to 600 micron cerium-doped optical fibers through a particle beam. Visible scintillati...

Acetylene and carbon dioxide gases are used in a filament-powered volume-cusp ion source to produce negative carbon ions for the purpose of carbon implantation for gettering applications. The beam was extracted to an energy of 25 keV and the composition was analyzed with a spectrometer system consisting of a 90° dipole magnet and a pair of slits. I...

Today's industrial ion source applications often require high beam currents with long source lifetime and low maintenance. Filament powered ion sources produce high beam currents but are limited by the short lifetime (~5000 mA*h) of the filament, while RF ion sources with external antennas do not require such maintenance. By changing the filament b...

Recent progress has been made at the newly commissioned Ion Source Test Facility (ISTF) [1]. Phase II, the final phase of the project, was completed in March 2016. First measurements were performed with D-Pace's TRI-UMF licensed H-ion source [2]. The source was first characterized with Hand an extraction study of the H-ions was performed. A study o...

Volume-cusp ion sources require a fast and precise control algorithm to ensure the arc current, and thus the beam current is stable for high-power industrial DC operation. Using D-Pace's TRIUMF [1] licensed filament-powered H  volume-cusp ion source, a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control algorithm was implemented that provides a peak-to...

Progress is being made in the development of an Ion Source Test Facility (ISTF) by D-Pace Inc. in collaboration with Buckley Systems Ltd. in Auckland, NZ. The first phase of the ISTF is to be commissioned in October 2015 with the second phase being commissioned in March 2016. The facility will primarily be used for the development and the commercia...

The recently proposed Pockels linear electrooptical microscopy is being applied to a quality and performance characterization of the 2-methyl-4-nitroaniline quadratic nonlinear optical molecular crystal down to confocal microscope resolution. Samples are grown between electrodes in single-film format. The dominant electrooptic tensor coefficient is...