Status of the 60 GHz ECR Ion Source Research

International audienceSEISM is a compact ECR ion source operating at 60 GHz developed up to 2014. The prototype uses a magnetic cusp to confine the plasma. This simple magnetic geometry was chosen to allow the use of polyhelix coils (developed at the LNCMI, Grenoble) to generate a strong magnetic confinement featuring a closed ECR surface at 2.1 T. The plasma is sustained by a 300 kW microwave pulse of 1 ms duration and with a 2 Hz repetition rate. Previous experiments at LNCMI have successfully demonstrated the establishment of the nominal magnetic field and the extraction of ion beams with a current density up to ~ 1A/cm². The presence of "afterglow" peaks was also observed, proving the existence of ion confinement in a cusp ECR ion source. The last run was prematurely stopped but the project restarted in 2018 and new experiments are planned in 2021. A new transport beam line has been designed to improve ion beam transport towards the beam detectors. Short- and long-term research plans are presented, including numerical simulations of the beam transport line and future upgrades of the ion source with the main goal to transform the high current density measured into a real high intensity ion beam