It is well known that there exist two distinct types of. ion beam neut
ralization, viz., charge and current neutralization. We have designed
and studied a versatile and compact microwave plasma (MP) cathode elec
tron gun dedicated to charge as well as current neutralization. Unlike
the conventional hot cathode neutralizer, this MP cathode allows oper
ation of the electron gun in a reactive gaseous environment when it is
eventually associated with an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion
gun. Charge neutralization can be easily carried out by extracting fro
m the MP cathode through a 1 mm diameter hole, a 35 mA electron beam u
nder a 20 V voltage; the MP cathode being fed with a 75 W microwave po
wer at 2.45 GHz. Higher beam intensities could be obtained using a mul
tiaperture thin plate. Electron beam intensities as high as 300 mA and
energies of 2 keV needed for current neutralization, e.g., when an io
n beam impinges onto a thick dielectric surface, are obtained via a tw
o-stage arrangement including an anodic chamber associated with a set
of three monoaperture plates for the electron beam extraction. Transpo
rt of 200-2000 eV electron beams is ensured using focusing optics comp
osed of three aligned tubes 6 cm in diameter and unsymmetrically polar
ized. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.