Estimation of the discharge current and extracted current from the Penning ion source

A Penning ion source for a miniature linear accelerator is investigated. A discharge current dependence on the anode voltage for several pressure values is calculated. The estimates are based partly on simplified theoretical models, partly on experimental data obtained on previous work. The ion current component is selected from the obtained dependences and the ion current component value, extracted from the ion source, is estimated. The extracted current dependences and the ion extraction efficiency coefficient value on the voltage at the anode at different source output aperture diameters are calculated.