Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The self-sputtering mode in high power pulsed magnetron discharges opens the possibility of generating plasma that contains mainly singly charged metal ions of the target (cathode) material. The main idea of a self-sputtering magnetron ion source is to utilize the dense plasma to extract ions from it and thus to form a beam of accelerated, purely singly charged metal ions. Such kind of metal ion source based on a planar magnetron has been reported in our previous, recent publication. The present paper describes the special features observed for the self-sputtering mode of an "inverted" cylindrical magnetron configuration formed by two coaxial cylindrical electrodes. This geometry appears attractive for a novel ion source design and its applications.