The invention, which relates to a miniaturizable plasma thruster, consists of: igniting the plasma by microhollow cathode discharge close to the outlet and inside the means for injecting the propellant gas, said injection means being magnetic and comprising a tip at the downstream end thereof; bringing the electrons of the magnetized plasma into gyromagnetic rotation, at the outlet end of said injection means; sustaining the plasma by means of Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR), said injection means being metal and being used as an antenna for electromagnetic (EM) emission, the volume of ECR plasma at the outlet of said injection means being used as a resonant cavity of the EM wave; accelerating the plasma in a magnetic nozzle by diamagnetic force, the ejected plasma being electrically neutral.

The invention comprises a multi-axis charged particle irradiation method and apparatus. The multi-axis controls includes separate or independent control of one or more of horizontal position, vertical position, energy control, and intensity control of the charged particle irradiation beam. Optionally, the charged particle beam is additionally controlled in terms of timing. Timing is coordinated with patient respiration and/or patient rotational positioning. Combined, the system allows multi-axis and multi-field charged particle irradiation of tumors yielding precise and accurate irradiation dosages to a tumor with distribution of harmful proximal distal energy about the tumor.

The invention comprises a multi-axis charged particle irradiation method and apparatus. The multi-axis controls includes separate or independent control of one or more of horizontal position, vertical position, energy control, and intensity control of the charged particle irradiation beam. Optionally, the charged particle beam is additionally controlled in terms of timing. Timing is coordinated with patient respiration and/or patient rotational positioning. Combined, the system allows multi-axis and multi-field charged particle irradiation of tumors yielding precise and accurate irradiation dosages to a tumor with distribution of harmful proximal distal energy about the tumor.

A device provides a simple and safe way of generating ions. The ions generated can be mixed and/or neutralized simply and without many additional parts and equipment. The device (10) required for this purpose is very compact and inexpensive since only one excitation system (44) is required for two spatially and/or electrically separated regions (24, 26) of a plasma vessel (20). In this way, at least one complete excitation system can be dispensed with, resulting in additional space and more degrees of freedom (e.g. in the movement of the device itself). The device (10) can be used both as an ion engine and for material processing, and is therefore universally applicable, it being possible to precisely adjust the kinetic energy via the grid system (28, 30) and the current density via the gas flow and the power of the plasma excitation.

The ion source includes a microwave power supply provided outside main magnetic poles, a radiofrequency waveguide and an antenna configured to introduce a microwave generated by the microwave power supply to a region to which a magnetic field generated by the main magnetic poles is applied, and a magnetic field generation unit provided inside a hole provided in a part of the main magnetic poles and configured to generate a magnetic field in a direction opposite to that of the magnetic field generated by the main magnetic poles. Plasma is generated inside the main magnetic poles by a magnetic field generated by applying the magnetic field generated by the magnetic field generation unit in the opposite direction to the main magnetic field decreased according to a diameter of the hole and the microwave introduced by the radiofrequency waveguide and the antenna.

Provided is a technique by which each nuclide is optimized in terms of energy and number of particles and pre-accelerated so as to be injected into a main accelerator in charged particle beam irradiation by the combined use of different nuclides. A charged particle beam injector includes: a first ion source that generates first nuclide ions; a first linear accelerator that linearly accelerates the generated first nuclide ions to form a first charged particle beam; a second ion source that generates second nuclide ions; a second linear accelerator that linearly accelerates the generated second nuclide ions to form a second charged particle beam; and a switching electromagnet that injects one of the first charged particle beam and the second charged particle beam into an inflector of a main accelerator.

A nuclear reaction generator includes a chamber configured to contain a gas and including a target. The nuclear reaction generator also includes a filament provided inside the chamber and a voltage source configured to apply a first positive voltage to the filament relative to the chamber. The first positive voltage is configured to heat the filament to a temperature at which thermionic emission occurs and a plurality of thermions are generated, and the plurality of thermions is configured to ionize the gas to generate positive ions in the chamber. The target is configured such that nuclear reactions occur when the positive ions interact with the target.

A method for generating ions includes providing a filament in a chamber containing gas, applying a first positive voltage to the filament relative to the chamber to heat the filament to a temperature at which thermionic emission occurs and a plurality of thermions are generated, and ionizing the gas to generate positive ions in an ionization region of the chamber.