The production of negative carbon ions from volume-cusp ion sources

The goal of this Thesis work is to develop and study high current negative carbon ion sources, that do not require the use of alkali metals, with the volume-cusp technology. Very few other ions other than H- and D- have been studied with this technology, and to the best of our knowledge, the production of negative carbon ions has never been investigated even though there are industrial advantages. Along with the industrial interest in the development of an alkali free, negative carbon ion source for ion implantation, there is a great opportunity to learn about the production of negative carbon ions in carbon rich plasmas. A test facility was developed for the purpose of this study, and the characteristics of the facility and the performance of the baseline filament-powered H- volume-cusp ion source are first presented. A radio frequency (RF) powered ion source was developed and the results of this new ion source with H- are presented. The performance of the extraction of negative carbon ions from the ion sources with various gases was studied. The plasma inside the ion source has been studied to determine how the ion source’s tuning parameters affect the species populations, the electron temperature and the electron density inside the different regions of the ion source. Finally, the ion source’s stability was improved.Science, Faculty ofPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofGraduat