High-Brightness Proton-Beams At The Nac Nuclear Microprobe By Acceleration Of H-2 Ions

The advantage of using the H-2 part of the beam for the acceleration of hydrogen ions is demonstrated. An order of magnitude improvement in beam brightness is measured for two ion sources: a duoplasmatron and a Penning source. The high-momentum beams require the microbeam lenses to be used with high focussing power. Therefore, the performance of the microprobe lenses when operating at their maximum strength has been investigated. The spatial resolution in the microprobe improved significantly when using the high-intensity H-2 beam; the current limitation being the beam stability.