This article proposes a plasma enclosed by an Artificially Structured Boundary (ASB) as an alternative to existing ion source assemblies. In accelerator applications, many ion sources can have a limited lifetime or frequent service intervals due to sputtering and eventual degradation of the ion source assembly. Ions are accelerated towards the exit canal of positive ion sources, whereas, due to the biasing scheme, electrons or negative ions are accelerated towards the back of the ion source assembly.

This article presents a configuration of magnetic fields using properties of cylindrically symmetric permanent magnets as a candidate to produce a high purity charged particle source or trap. Cylindrically symmetric hollow permanent magnets produce magnetic field point cusps on the axis of symmetry. A magnetic field point cusp reflects all particles that lie outside a narrow region of phase space, a region dependent on particle kinetic energies and on the magnetic field intensity.