Negative-ion plasma sources

Three designs for negative-ion plasma sources are described. Two sources utilize metal hexafluorides such as SF6 and WF6 to scavenge electrons from electron-ion plasmas and the third relies upon surface ionization of alkali halide salts on heated alumina and zirconia. SF6 introduced into electron-ion plasmas yielded negative-ion plasma densities of 1010 cm−3 with low residual electron densities, (ne/ni∼0.01–0.05). On alumina, plasma densities of 5×109 cm−3 were obtained for CsCl, CsI, and KI and 109 cm−3 for KCl. On zirconia 1010 cm−3 densities were obtained for CsCl. For alkali halide sources, electron densities of ne/ni≲10−4 have been achieved.