Abstract: A process for igniting a ultra-high frequency ion source using in a per se known manner, a resonator cavity supplied by a gas or a vapor of a material for forming a plasma, a system for injecting ultra-high frequency power into the cavity and a system for extracting ions of the plasma outside of the cavity, said process comprising the steps of forming the cavity to be of the multimode type, producing nucleating electrons within the medium to be ionized and preserving the plasma following its ignition solely by ultra-high frequency power. Apparatus for igniting an ultra-high frequency ion source using the process is also disclosed.

Abstract: An electron cyclotron resonance ion source in which a plasma is confined in a magnetic configuration having a first group of coils located in the plane defined by the tight window of an ultra-high frequency injector and surrounding the latter, supplying the magnetic field creating and confining a plasma as well as a second group of coils supplied in counter-field compared with the first group and surrounding an ion extraction system. Ion extraction takes place in a magnetic field well below that corresponding to the cyclotron resonance. This ion source has numerous applications in the field of thin layer sputtering, microetching, ion implantation, accelerators, etc.