Charge Exchange Cell Simulator

Application ID: 26861


A charge exchange cell consists of a region of gas at an elevated pressure within a vacuum chamber. When an ion beam interacts with the higher-density gas, the ions undergo charge exchange reactions with the gas which then create energetic neutral particles. It is likely that only a fraction of the beam ions will undergo charge exchange reactions. Therefore, in order to neutralize the beam, a pair of charged deflecting plates are positioned outside the cell. In this way, an energetic neutral source can be produced.

This app simulates the interaction of a proton beam with a charge exchange cell containing neutral argon. User input includes several geometric parameters for the gas cell and vacuum chamber, beam properties, and the properties of the charged plates that are used to deflect the remaining ions.

The simulation app computes the efficiency of the charge exchange cell, measured as the fraction of ions that are neutralized, and records statistics about the different types of collisions that occur.

This application example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products: