Note: Stability and lifetime of scandium deuteride film cathode in a vacuum arc ion source.

This paper reports the properties of the plasma and gas produced in a vacuum arc discharge with scandium deuteride (ScD1.8) film cathodes. The thickness of the ScD1.8 film influences the quantity of the gases released from the cathode material. The deuterium gas releasing in the discharge process was in a depth range from the cathode surface to the cathode interior, that is, between 3 and 6 μm. Surprisingly, after discharge, the deuterium ion ratio remains the same in the film with different thicknesses. That indicates that the release of deuterium gas in a 3 μm-thick ScD1.8 film is enough for ionization. In addition, as the number of discharge increases, the stability of atomic fraction ratio gets worse and the ratio of deuterium ions decreases.

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