An ion beam is a type of charged particle beam consisting of ions. Ion beams have many uses in electronics manufacturing and other industries. A variety of ion beam sources exists, some derived from the mercury vapor thrusters developed by NASA in the 1960s. The most common ion beams are of singly-charged ions.
A small ion beam rocket being tested by NASA.
Carl Zeiss Crossbeam 550 – combines a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) with a focused ion beam (FIB).
Nanofluidics channels fabricated with a Zeiss Crossbeam 550 L, in a silicon master stamp
An ion source is a device that creates atomic and molecular ions. Ion sources are used to form ions for mass spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, particle accelerators, ion implanters and ion engines.
Mass spectrometer EI/CI ion source
Electron ionization source schematic
NASA's NEXT (ion thruster) space craft propulsion system
Capillaritron with quartz capillary in operation within a vacuum chamber: On the left the glowing capillary with the plasma up to the extraction cathode and on the right behind it the bluish glowing ion beam.