Annual Meeting of the ErUM-FSP APPA 2026

As the upgrades of accelerator facilities are pushing the frontiers of high-intensity and high-energy particle beams, there is a demand for reliable beam extraction techniques into high-pressurized target areas with little impact on the beam properties. A promising technique that allows the extraction of such ion beams is the plasma window [1]. It is based on a cascaded arc discharge that enables active control of the pressure gradient depending on the selected working gas, flow rate and arc current.

At the Plasma Physics Group of Goethe University Frankfurt, a prototype of such a plasma window has been developed. As part of its characterization, it has been successfully used to demonstrate the transmission of heavy ion beams while simultaneously maintaining the pressure gradient well over 10h in a single run.

This contribution gives an insight into the plasma physical properties as well as the operating parameters of the developed plasma window and highlights its impact on the properties of the transmitted ion beam.

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