About the Extraction of Surface Produced Ions in Negative Ion Sources

The enhancement of extracted negative ion current in cesiated sources is usually explained by the surface production of negative ions. In this contribution, the self-consistent production and transport of H- in the extraction region of a radio-frequency driven negative ion source is modelled by means of a parallel two-dimensional Particle-in-Cell/Monte Carlo Collision simulation. It is shown that the number of surface-produced negative ions extracted is regulated by a potential well developed in front of the plasma grid such that the extracted current does not proportionally increase with the flux of negative ions emitted at the surface.