Investigation of the performance optimization of the low-voltage, non-magnetic, pyroelectricity-based ion pump

This work presents a new low-voltage, magnetic-less ion pump that utilizes the pyroelectric principle. Both the electron emission and high-voltage to realize an ion pump are supplied by pyroelectric material, whose activation only requires 5 V drive voltage. Structure optimization of the pyroelectric ion pump is carried out in order to reduce outgassing during an operating period to achieve a better pumping performance. The outgassing characteristics of the optimized ion pump are investigated by simulation and experiment, and its pumping performance is experimentally tested and the pumping speed is calculated using experimental data. The results show that the outgassing of a Ti tube structure ion pump is approximately two-orders-of-magnitude lower compared to that of a Ti plate structure ion pump. The pyroelectric ion pump can further reduce the system limiting pressure from 2.8 × 10−6 Pa achieved by a turbomolecular pump unit to 1.81 × 10−6 Pa, with the estimated pumping rate of 1.6 l/s that exceeds most reported magnetic-less ion pumps. The pyroelectric ion pump demonstrates great potential in low-drive voltage, magnetic-less high-vacuum pumping for the high precision sensors using atomic interferometers technology.