Ion source technology is an important embranchment in plasma study. At the same time

the ion source which can produce high beam current at low extracting voltage is an important pursued aim due to its wide application fields

such as ion beam etching

ion beam sputtering deposition

the study on the interaction between ion beam and materials

and so on. An argon ion source used for sputtering deposition has been successfully developed based on the construction of hollow cathode connecting hollow anode and the technologies of thermal cathode electron emission arc discharge

plasma magnetic confinement and ion extracting on a curving surface. The dependence of the discharge arc current on the arc voltage and the filament heating current

and the dependence of the ion extracting efficiency on the arc current and the working gas pressure have been studied. The extracting voltage of the ion source can be changed between 0—4.0 kV continuously. The maximum extractable ion beam current is 100 mA and the maximum deposition rate is 0.45 nm/s using Ti as the sputtering material. The ion source can be operated continuously for 160 h.