PIG (Penning Ionization Gauge) ion source

The PIG source has a long tradition at GSI. This type of ion source has been used since the beginning of GSI operation in the early 1970ies. The ion source is installed in high voltage Terminal South in order to inject multiply-charged ions with ion beam currents of several hundreds of electrical microamperes into the high current injector (HSI) of the UNILAC. Gaseous (argon, neon, krypton, xenon…) as well as metallic ions (aluminum, bismuth, chrome, gold, lead…) are produced and post-accelerated to the injection energy of the radio-frequency quadrupole of 2.2keV/u. The speciality of this ion source is the plasma generation inside a strong magnetic dipole field.