Extraction of high-intensity ion beams from a laser plasma by a pulsed spherical diode

High-current Cu⁺ ion beams were extracted from a laser-produced plasma using a pulsed high-voltage multiaperture diode driven by an induction cavity. The amplitude and the duration of the extraction voltage were 130 kV and 450 ns, respectively. During the extraction, explosive beam divergence due to the strong space-charge force was suppressed by the focusing action of the gap between concentric hemispheres. Modulation of the extracted beam flux due to the plasma prefill in the gap has been eliminated by using a biased control grid put on the anode holes. By means of this extraction scheme we obtained a rectangular beam pulse with a rise time as short as ≈100  ns. The beam current behind the cathode was limited to ≈0.1   A, owing to space-charge effects, as well as to poor geometrical transmission through the cathode sphere. From the measurement of the extracted beam current density distribution along the beam axis and the beam profile measurement, we found a beam waist slightly downstream of the spherical center of the diode structure. The measured beam behavior was consistent with numerical results obtained via a 3D particle code. No serious degradation of the beam emittance was observed for the grid-controlled extraction scheme.