A New End-Hall Ion Source with Improved Performance

End-Hall ion sources have been used for almost 20 years in the optical coating industry for ion assisted deposition (IAD) and substrate pre-clean. In these applications, end-Hall ion sources have several desirable performance characteristics. They produce a large current of low energy ions, and they distribute the ions uniformly over a large coverage area. The sources can operate on either argon or oxygen, and maintenance requirements are typically lower than for gridded ion sources. The trends toward higher production volumes and reduced cost of ownership in the optical coatings industry require ion sources with higher output, modular integration, and more effective maintenance features. This paper presents a new end-Hall ion source that has improvements in performance, form factor, and required maintenance over the current industry-leading end-Hall ion source. Ion production rates, beam uniformity, and thermal characteristics are presented at discharge powers up to 3 kW.