In this paper, the wear of a WL10 ion source during operation with BF3 and argon in a Varian 350 D medium current implanter is studied and compared to the wear of a molybdenum and a graphite ion source, respectively.
Considering the weight loss and the broadening of the extraction slit, the WL10 ion source showed a slightly better wear behavior than the molybdenum ion source. The wear of the graphite ion source was only slightly higher than that of the WL10 and the molybdenum ion source. However, since graphite showed the strongest reactions during BF3 operation, it is difficult to compare the results.