LPSC, Grenoble Cedex, France
CNRS LPGP Univ Paris Sud, Orsay, France
This work presents a study on the feasibility of the implementation of the guiding centre (GC) approach in electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion sources, with the goal of speeding up the electron’s orbit integration in certain regimes. It is shown that the GC approximation reproduces accurately the trajectory drifts and periodic behaviour of electrons in the minimum-B field. A typical electron orbit far enough from the source’s axis is well reproduced for 1 µs of propagation time, with the GC time-step constrained below 100 ps, giving one order of magnitude gain in computation time with respect to Boris. For an electron orbit close to the axis a disphasement of the electron’s trajectory is observed, but the spatial envelope is conserved. A comparative study analyses electron trajectories in a flatter B-field, that in a microwave discharge ion source, where this method’s drawbacks may be avoided given a smaller magnetic field gradient and a shorter electron lifetime in the plasma chamber. In this regime electron trajectories were very well reproduced by the GC approximation. The time-step was constrained below 10 ns, providing up to 30 times faster integration compared to Boris.
