Setup and Investigation of a Plasma Window Pressure Valve for Heavy Particle Beam Transmission to High Pressurized Target Areas

With an ever-growing enhancement of particle beam energies and intensities in accelerators around the world, a reliable vacuum to high-pressure-target separation technique is strongly needed where common separation techniques such as differential pumping stages or solid membranes might fail. A plasma window, first introduced by A. Hershcovitch [1] and based on a wall stabilized arc discharge, offers the advantage of a membraneless particle beam transmission from low- to high pressurized target areas.

At the plasma physics department of Goethe University Frankfurt, a plasma window, featuring a continuously operated argon arc discharge (t > 10h), was developed and successfully tested during the 2022 GSI UNILAC beamtime, utilizing an ⁴⁸Ca¹⁰⁺ ion beam at 4.8MeV/u - therefore proving its applicability on the transmission of heavy ion beams.

This contribution presents the underlying sealing mechanisms of the arc discharge, its electrical parameters, its plasma physical and pressure separating properties as well as the characteristics of the transmitted ion beam.

[1] Hershcovitch, A., J. Appl. Phys., AIP Publishing, 1995, 78, 5283