Mohamed Eisa1This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., J.L. Conradie2, C. Mtshali3, N. Mongwaketsi3, and M. Maaza3,4
1Department of Physics, College of Science, Northern Border University, Arar, Saudi Arabia
2iThemba LABS-National Research Foundation, Accelerator Department, P.O. Box 722, Somerset West 7129, Cape Town, South Africa
3Materials Research Department, P.O. Box 722, Somerset West 7129, Cape Town, South Africa
4UNESCO-UNISA Africa Chair in Nanosciences & Nanotechnology Laboratories, College of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa, Muckleneuk Ridge, P.O. Box 392, Pretoria 0003, South Africa.
Received: May 22, 2025 Accepted: August 15, 2025 Publication Date: December 28, 2025
Copyright The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are cited.
In the study we report the features and ideal stable operating conditions of the ion source and the accelerator’s beam behavior of a nuclear microprobe at a laboratory for accelerator-based science (LABS) laboratory, i.e., iThemba LABS, South Africa. Since the aim is to improve the reliability and stability of ion beams used as a probe, we optimize the beam characteristics along the Van de Graaff accelerator from the ion source through the accelerator. Higher-order aberrations and non-ideal magnetic field profiles can induce complexities in beam deformation that are frequently missed by conventional first-order linear approximations. Moreover, the complicated nature and time commitment of trial-and-error methods make experimental adjustment alone inadequate. To accurately model and optimize the transport and focus characteristics of the ion beam, including effects from non-linear field components, dispersion, and alignment errors, a thorough mathematical framework is therefore required, backed by simulation tools such as TRANSPORT, TOSCA, and IGUN.
Keywords: beamline; emittance; beam intensity; ion source; microprobe; magnetic field
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