Negative Decaborane Ion Beam From Itep Bernas Ion Source

A joint research and development effort focusing on the design of steady state, intense ion sources has been in progress for the past two and a half years with a couple of Russian institutions. The ultimate goal of the effort is to meet the two, energy extreme range needs of mega-electron-volt and 100's of electron-volt ion implanters. This endeavor has already resulted in record steady state output currents of higher charge state antimony and phosphorous ions to meet high-energy implantation requirements. For low energy ion implantation, R&D efforts have involved molecular ions and a novel plasmaless/gasless deceleration method. To date, 1 emA of positive decaborane ions were extracted at 10 keV and a smaller current of negative decaborane ions were also extracted. Though of scientific interest, negative decaborane ions did not attract interest from industry, since the semiconductor ion implant industry seems to have solved the wafer-charging problem. This paper describes conditions under which negative decaborane ions are formed and extracted from a Bernas ion source.