10th International symposium on Negative Ions, Beams and Sources - NIBS'26

The Use of Simulation Software to Predict the Expected Pressures within the Internal Plasma Chamber of a Penning-Ion Source

Sep 21, 2026, 5:00 PM

2h

Hume Hotel

Poster Poster Session 1

Speaker

Sydney Spence (Selkirk Ion-source Research Centre)

Description

S. Spence¹, C. MacKenzie^1,2, R. Gagnon^1,4, B. Warfield^1,3, M. Morissette¹, M. Dehnel^1,3

1. Selkirk Ion-source Research Centre (SIRC)
2. University of Saskatchewan, Department of Physics and Engineering Physics
3. University of Victoria, Department of Physics and Astronomy
4. University of Victoria, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

The Selkirk Ion-source Research Centre (SIRC) is in the process of assembling and commissioning a Penning ion-source test stand for a series of graduate research projects. Measuring the internal pressure of the Penning plasma chamber will be estimated by calibrating MolFlow [1] simulations with vacuum gauge measurements on the overall test stand vacuum chamber.
A Computer-Aided Design (CAD) file of the vacuum box and Penning source was created and imported into MolFlow, where geometry is represented as a series of polygons and facets, with the appropriate testing parameters applied to the system. Each internal face has an applied outgassing rate that is consistent with the material of the specified facet. The turbo-molecular pump is denoted with its pumping rate as specified by its manufacturer. With these parameters, the internal pressures of the system can be simulated over time and exported as a table of values or a pressure gradient map. The simulation results will be compared with pressure gauge readings of the actual vacuum system. Comparing the gauge readings of the vacuum system with the simulated pressure calculations within MolFlow will permit simulation iterations with modified outgas values to achieve a model that correlates well with the measured vacuum values in the overall test stand vacuum chamber, which will be described in this poster/paper. Next a MolFlow simulation campaign will be described, in which pressure values inside the 8 mm diameter by 50 mm tall cylindrical Penning ion source are obtained at various Nitrogen and Hydrogen gas flow rates. This pressure data will serve as inputs for Particle-In-Cell (PIC) models of the Penning plasma and support the development of N⁵⁺ and negative Hydrogen ion beam production.