Numerical simulation multicomponent ion beam transport from ECR ion source.

We are developing a multicharged ion beam transport program. The program is dedicated to numerical simulation of the behavior of highly charged ion beam and optimization of beam optics in transport lines and is realized on a PC with Windows user interface of Microsoft Visual Basic. Among all the ions with different charge states in the beam, the exchange of electrons between highly charged ions and low charged ions or neutral atoms of residual gas are taken into account using classical molecular over-barrier model and Monte Carlo method. Therefore, the code is able to describe the changing charge state distribution along the transmission line. The initial charged state distribution of ions may be input from experimental data or calculated from some classical density distribution such as uniform, Gaussian, water bag, or parabolic. The main advantage of the code is the ability to simultaneously simulate a number of ions with different masses and charge states, particularly the decrease of the highly charge ions and the increase of low charged ions due to electron capture. Some simulation results for a transmission line of a highly charged ECR ion source are presented. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]