How do Ion Cannons work

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Gah, I can't believe I completely forgot about the DEMP gun...

[Connor MacLeod]

I'd guess it's similar to an EMP. Hit your target with a bunch of charged particles; even if they don't penetrate the shields, they're going to change the charge around the ship, and that could potentially (no pun intended) interfere electrical systems. If the ship is surrounded by positively charged particles, won't they attract the ship's electrons, disrupting current flow?

That makes sense. And it seems to be what Curtis thinks also:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/misc.html#combat

The nature of the ion cannon shots is as unobvious as the shots from blaster weapons. With "turbolaser" blasts, it is uncertain whether the dangerous energy is supposed to involve or merely create "lasers", and similarly it is not certain what the role of ions might be in ion cannons. Roleplaying game sources stated that ion cannon shots disrupt electronics in a target vehicle. This would be understandable if the shots carry or cause the creation of ions -- electrically charged atomic fragments of matter.

I believe that real life charged-particle beams have been noted to have secondary effects that would be consistent with ion-cannon effects (Due I think to the charge of the particles, as well as secondary radiation that might be generated by the impact of the beam, as well as the raw destruction generated by the purely-thermal effect.)

It occurs to me that the weapon itself is going to have to do something to deal with the charge imbalance it creates when it fires. If it fires a bunch of protons (or other positively charged ions) at an enemy, it's suddenly going to have a negative charge that will attract the bolt right back to it. In the case of the Hoth ion cannon, it would also have to keep the ions from interacting with the atmosphere on the way to the target.

Is there a more sensible way for such a weapon to work?

I think its workable, in some way. I dont think a burst of charged particles is as difficult to "contain" as a plasma is (since the main problem with containing the plasma is that its extreme heat tends to make it expand rapidly - with charged particles you're simply dealing with mutual repulsion.) I've discussed it with a few people like Durandal before, but I don't remember the specifics. It doesn't seem like an impossibility though, either, given that Curtis seems to think along the lines you do.

I do know that dealing with atmosphere is not neccesarily difficult - modern particle beam reasearch intended to deal with the atmosphere by using another laser or particle beam discharge to ionize a path through the atmosphere - "tunneling" so to speak, if I remember correctly.

[Connor MacLeod]

Dr Saxon make mention on his website that the SW lasers have been seen to short out electronic system ( Luke's snowspeeder at Hoth ).

Any large releases of energy, especially with the level of power even available to SW energy wepaons, can potentailly cause an ionization/EMP effect as a secondary requirement.

[Connor MacLeod]

What happened was that he theorised that the Ion Cannon fires a bolt of plasma, that is somehow caused to spin/turn/whatever so that a continous net change in the magnetic field is present.

It maybe would work with charged particles, but insofar as I am aware such would not be enough to overcome the naturally expanding nature of a hot plasma, especially something on the level a SW weapon might generate.

Assuming that the Ion cannon, blaster cannon and Turbolaser are all based on approximately the same technology, this serves to enhance the sparking effect seen when the AT-AT hit a snowspeeder in TESB, thus causing a massive electrical surge in the target. Since SW circuits are shielded against EMP as related in one of Han Solo adventures in the Corporate Sector(dig out the book later, its 1.00am now), well protected ships only suffer a temporary disabling shutdown as their safeties cut in.

They don't seem to be quite as "similar" as that, but the same is true of real life "directed energy weapons" The term "blaster" seems to encompass both massless particle beams, massive particle beams, and some sort of "plasma projectile" that likely has some sort of small projectile inside generating a containment field.

[Ender]

Is it possible to engineer some sort of "lightning rod" to drain off the charge into hyperspace or subspace?

No, SW doesn't pull stupid shit like that.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The EMP cannot penetrate shields--ICS implies this, as does the fact that ion cannons must bunch through shields before disabling stuff. Additionally, this helps explain why ion cannons having to produce equal charge quantities negative and positive, even though its lobbing one at the target one at a time due to CoC. You need an excuse why those residual charges in the cannon aren't disabling stuff, and the fact of shields blocking ion effects works fine.

http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-013/_1938.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

EMP like any form of radiation can penetrate shields if powerful enough. Obviosuly if it is focused (like a DEMP gun), it will be more effective than the EMP generated by a bomb.

Perhaps I should've rephrased--my intention was to say that the difference in charge across a shield must be nullified in part by the shield, or it would not be necessary for the ion cannon to penetrate the shields. Also, the left-over negative or positive charges equal to the opposite quantity hurled at the enemy must not be able to generate EMP in the ship mounting said ion cannon because ion cannons would disable their own ships.