Evaluation method of beam instability in laser ion source using solenoid

Abstract

In a laser ion source using solenoid field confinement, it is known that an ion beam becomes unstable in the certain range of a magnetic field. Although it is essential to quantify the instability when discussing the unstable region of the beam, it is difficult to evaluate the beam instability by peak current or the amount of charge because an irregular change of temporal profile occurs in addition to the shot-by-shot fluctuation of amplitude. In this study, I propose the most appropriate method to evaluate the beam instability using the difference from an average waveform. The validity of the new method was evaluated by comparing three evaluation methods (variation of maximum value, variation of integral of waveforms, and the proposed evaluation method) with the experimentally obtained waveforms with the stable and unstable regions of a solenoid field. The proposed method was verified to best represent the beam instability by laser-induced plasma.