D C I O N B E A M S O U R C E P O W E R S U P P L Y
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Introduction
Thank you for purchasing an ion beam source power supply from Plasma Process Group!
This Manual covers the installation and operation of our IBEAM 601 FC/FN power supply. The
I-BEAM™ power supply is designed to control a DC style ion beam source.
Ion beam technology was developed at NASA in the 1960’s as a means of producing thrust on
spacecraft. Several spacecraft have used ion beam thrusters for station keeping and trajectory
control. The spacecraft Deep Space 1, demonstrated the long duration performance capabilities and
propulsion advantages of ion-beam thrusters. There are numerous publications about ion beam
thrusters and some are given here for the interested reader [1-3].
Ion beam sources also have numerous terrestrial applications. In the past decades, ion beams have
been used for depositing wear resistant diamond-like carbon coatings on mechanical and optical
hardware. They have also been used to fabricate the read/write heads used in computer hard-drives
and thin-film optical filters for telecommunication applications. A select few publications involving
ion beam deposition technology are given here for the interested reader [4-7].
For this manual, it is assumed the operator of the ion beam source has a basic knowledge and/or
technical skills with electrical discharge devices. If necessary, we encourage a review of the
introductory chapters for the following references [8-10]. A basic physical knowledge of plasma
behavior is required: however, the mathematical descriptions will be kept to a minimum. For any
technical assistance, please contact us.
We at Plasma Process Group hope that using your new ion beam source will produce rewarding
results.
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