Measurement of total ion flux in vacuum Arc discharges

A vacuum arc ion source was modified allowing us to collections from arc plasma streaming through an anode mesh. The mesh had ageometric transmittance of 60 percent, which was taken into account as acorrection factor. The ion current from twenty-two cathode materials wasmeasured at an arc current of 100 A. The ion current normalized by thearc current was found to depend on the cathode material, with valuesinthe range from 5 percent to 11 percent. The normalized ion current isgenerally greater for light elements than for heavy elements. The ionerosion rates were determined fromvalues of ion currentand ion chargestates, which were previously measured in the same experimental system.The ion erosion rates range from 12-94 mu g/C