Mass separation of ions in a circular plasma flow

A condition is formulated for nonoverlapping focal spots for ions of various masses in axisymmetric plasma-optic separators with electrostatic ion focusing. It is established that a large spread of ion energies in a plasma flow can hinder the panoramic separation of ions in a common focal plane perpendicular to the axis of the initial plasma flow. For such a flow, a method for the ideal separation of three isotope ion species with masses M (2) < M (0) < M (1) is proposed, according to which the ions with masses M (1) and M (2) are deposited on the inner and outer cylindrical collectors, respectively, while the ions of mass M (0) are collected on the intermediate edge ring.