Design study towards a novel radio frequency quadruple (RFQ) ion transport system

Abstract

Radio frequency quadrupoles (RFQ) has vast applications in many fields particularly in nuclear physics. Its importance lies within ion guidance and mass filtering. Our aim in this project is to design a cost effective and easy to manufacture RFQ using Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) inside SIMION 8.1. We have adopted two different designs, the first one is the two pad geometry where it has four same width electrodes with two electrodes lie in each side. The other one is a three pad geometry where it has six electrodes, two identical electrodes in the center and four identical on the sides. We have optimized each geometry by fitting the potential and calculate the higher order terms of the multipole expansion. The results that the optimum two pad geometry has width of 10 mm and gap of 2 mm and the three pad’s optimum geometry has 8.5 mm for center width, 25 mm for sided width and 4.5 mm gap. Both geometries have 10 mm height. The pseudopotential for the optimum two pad is 15 V where it is 10 V for three pad. A setup was constructed using the two pad geometry which had full ion transmission.