Structural Information on the ECR Plasma by X-ray Imaging

Precise knowledge on the density distribution of the Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source plasma is needed by several reasons: i) in order to possibly improve the quality parameters of the extracted ion beam (emit-tance, brightness) strongly linked to the plasma structure, ii) to correctly investigate the recently observed plasma instabilities and/or the implementation of alternative heat-ing methods (e.g. modal conversion) iii) in order to im-prove the general microwave-to-plasma coupling effi-ciency, in view of a microwave-absorption oriented de-sign of future ECRIS. The non-destructive spectroscopic diagnostic methods give information always correspond-ing to integration over the whole plasma volume. X-ray imaging by pin-hole camera can partlyovercome this limitation. We performed volumetric and space resolved X-ray measurements at the ATOMKI ECRIS operated at lower frequencies than usual. The experimental setup in detail and the methods how the working parameters were selected will be shown. The integrated and photon-counting analyses of the collected plasma images show a strong effect of the frequency and magnetic field on the plasma structure and local energy content.