  Intense highly charged ion beam production is essential for high-power heavy
ion accelerators. A novel movable Vlasov launcher for superconducting high
charge state Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source has been devised
that can affect the microwave power effectiveness by a factor of about 4 in
terms of highly charged ion beam production. This approach based on a dedicated
microwave launching system instead of the traditional coupling scheme has led
to new insight on microwave-plasma interaction. With this new understanding,
the world record highly charged xenon ion beam currents have been enhanced by
up to a factor of 2, which could directly and significantly enhance the
performance of heavy ion accelerators and provide many new research
opportunities in nuclear physics, atomic physics and other disciplines.
