Particle beam transport through an insulator guide

In this paper we present a new transport scheme for an intense electron beam and for an intense ion beam using an insulator guide: charged particle extraction from a plasma generated at the insulator surface is self-regulated by the net space charge of the beam in order for effective charge neutralization. A part of the beam particles hits the insulator surface, and the particle charge accumulated at the insulator surface creates local discharges. The discharges produce the plasma at the insulator surface. In this paper we present particle-in-cell simulation results for the particle beam transport through the insulator guide. The simulation results demonstrate that the self-regulated space-charge neutralization is effectively achieved, and that the simplicity of the proposed scheme may increase its viability. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. Al rights reserved.