How do Ion bolts work?

[His Divine Shadow]

How do they work, how do they do their stuff(screwing with electronics)?

It would seem they are charged particle weapons, possibly plasma weapons.

Can anyone give me some more info, and possibly also on how charged particles would interefere with equippment?

[Lord Edam]

My personal opinion has always been that they are charged particle weapons - firing either negative or positive ions (there's a quote from Leia somewhere describing ion cannons as being set to a different polarity)

When these hit the shields(or hull) they are stopped. Accelerating charged particles = massive EMP, so basically it's your classic EMP weapon.

Depending on your idea of how shields work, this EMP is either not blocked or is only partially blocked by the shields. The ship relies heavily on superconductors for power distribution. When they get hit by the EMP the power distribution system blows due to the rapidly increasing resistance.

result - one dead ship.

I used to have the quotes that supported this allsaved in an organised file. But I forgot to back it up when I nuled my hard drive. They can probably be found quite easily, though.

[Patrick Ogaard]

My own interpretation tends more toward -- at least for big weapons like the heavy ion cannon of ISDs or the Hoth ion cannon -- the weapon being a maser equivalent of the turbolaser.

That avoids the problems of self-contained bolts of plasma zipping around. The effect should be the same, since the maser-style weapon would also produce a massive EMP effect, following cracks and crevices in the surface of the target like waveguides, following those waveguides into the interior wherever the opportunity presents itself.

There are, of course, a few possible objections to my interpretation.

One is that the guns are called "ion" cannon, not microwave cannon or maser cannon. However, the ion cannon ionizes the targets systems, so that name matter can be explained away easily enough.

Another objection is that the guns don't destroy their targets outright. A maser naturally would not necessarily outright destroy or even visibly damage a target constructed of durable Star Wars-type structural materials and armor, and protected by Star Wars-type shields. Something less durable, like a Star Trek starship, might well be gutted by such a maser attack. It must also be kept in mind that throwing what must be megaton, gigaton and even teraton-level bolts of highly charged plasma would be similarly destructive, if not even more so.

The final objection I can think of is that maser weapons would be hideous antipersonnel weapons. The obvious answer, again, is that a highly charged plasma bolt would be similarly unhealthy, and would leave the target similarly crispy.

This does, of course, require the visible portion of the bolt to be a comparatively harmless tracer element like that of a blaster, laser or turbolaser.

That then leads to the need to explain the impact of the ion bolts on the ISD in ESB. I would then assume -- disregarding the "ion cannon ignore ray shields" bit from West End Games -- that the ion bolts arrived on target at the same time that the actual EMP beams of the shots managed to batter down the ISD's shields. The Hoth ion cannon was certainly a heavy capital ship grade weapon, and if heavy turbolasers of approximately equivalent power are supposed to be able to batter down capship shields, then the Hoth ion cannon should have been able to do so as well if it used a brute force approach.

The defensive value of an ion cannon for ground fire instead of a turbolaser might then be in terms of the disabling effects of an ion cannon attack. Even a minor breach of the targeted ship's shielding could lead to shipwide temporary outages, allowing the defenders to take appropriate action while the enemy is temporarily out of the fight.

I could very well be way off base with my assumptions, but I'm rather fond of them.

[Lord Edam]

That avoids the problems of self-contained bolts of plasma zipping around.

But the bolts of plasma don't need to be self contained. Simply have a setup in the weapon that only releases charged particles heading in a very specific direction - specifically, a magnetic bottle, as used in some high-end materials testing setups. Then you end up with a beam or, if you only release ions over a short period, a bolt.

It also means you can "spray" the weapon - have multiple shots along different vectors, whereas to get the coincidence of bolt impact and maser beam effects would require you to keep the weapon on-target until you get the desired effect. Hoth shows ion cannons can be used along multiple vectors at the same time from the same gun, which is simply impossible with beam weapons.

It must also be kept in mind that throwing what must be megaton, gigaton and even teraton-level bolts of highly charged plasma would be similarly destructive, if not even more so.

But the bolts themselves do not need to be particularly energetic, only highly charged, if it's the charge that causes the effect.

The final objection I can think of is that maser weapons would be hideous antipersonnel weapons. The obvious answer, again, is that a highly charged plasma bolt would be similarly unhealthy, and would leave the target similarly crispy.

hmm.. that's a point. are there any examples of ion cannons being used against personnel? That could help narrow down the possible mechanism.

[PainRack]

The Jawas used an "ion gun" against R2D2 in ANH.

[Knife]

Not being the rockeet scientist of this bunch, here is my idea. The ion cannon does indeed shoot or spray or squirt out a charged particle beam in the form of plasma (my belief that SW weapons are at least based on plasma). A large electrical charge is added to the bolt when fired, thus making it a coherent lightning bolt. When the plasma medium hits the target, and the shields (if any) stop it, the electrical energy is transfered into the target itself, overloading electrical systems and pooping the breakers (per se).

We know, or suppose, that Imperial vessels use basic electrical systems instead of more exotic systems like plasma for their avionics and such. A massive discharge into the system will shut down the control systems and other electrical systems on the ship by either tripping the breaker or blowing them out completely. Could also explain the electrical discharge seen on the outside hull of the vessel.

[ClaysGhost]

But the bolts of plasma don't need to be self contained. Simply have a setup in the weapon that only releases charged particles heading in a very specific direction - specifically, a magnetic bottle, as used in some high-end materials testing setups. Then you end up with a beam or, if you only release ions over a short period, a bolt.

Charged particle beams are very bad at propagating through atmosphere.

But the bolts themselves do not need to be particularly energetic, only highly charged, if it's the charge that causes the effect.

Very high charge density will encourage the bolt to disperse, won't it?

Could also explain the electrical discharge seen on the outside hull of the vessel.

There must be something ionisable (and cold) around the ship immediately after the impact, or we wouldn't see this arcing. Unless this is something to do with the shields.

[Patrick Ogaard]

The Jawas used an "ion gun" against R2D2 in ANH.

True, and impeccably canon. On the merely official side is the DEMP gun, available to Imperial troops in pistol and carbine form, which is a purpose-built EMP gun designed to stun (low settings) or fry (high settings) droids and similar systems. The high setting is supposed to be intended to work primarily against well-protected military droid models.

It's unlikely that these weapons use fundamentally different technologies from those of warships. The difference should reasonably be one of scale.

Also, there is at least one little Jawa desperado hanging out in Jabba's throne room during ROTJ. Why would that Jawa bother carrying -- as this Jawa patently does -- the signature Jawa weapon if it is ineffective against organic targets? Of course it could be a cheaply homemade Jawa blaster, but it does look exactly like a Jawa ion blaster. It's hardly conclusive evidence of the nature of ion guns/ion cannon, but a high-powered microwave gun would certainly prove lethal against an organic target in a pinch (and makes for a toasty womp rat roast).

[Admiral Johnason]

They work like a lighting bolt would, a beam of negative ions hits the target and overloads the systems.

[Mitth`raw`nuruodo]

The Jawas used an "ion gun" against R2D2 in ANH.

True, and impeccably canon. On the merely official side is the DEMP gun, available to Imperial troops in pistol and carbine form, which is a purpose-built EMP gun designed to stun (low settings) or fry (high settings) droids and similar systems. The high setting is supposed to be intended to work primarily against well-protected military droid models.

It's unlikely that these weapons use fundamentally different technologies from those of warships. The difference should reasonably be one of scale.

A Ship-mounted DEMP gun was used in SW novel The Truce at Bakura. That makes it canon, as long as nothing in the movies is contridicting it...

[omegaLancer]

Ion Cannon may not fire ion at all. It very likely that they fire a series of ultra short ( in the Femtosecond ) pulses that actually causes either the ray shield or the material of starship hull to emit and ultra power EMP burst.

Check out this From AIP.

Megagauss in Picoseconds

The item above describes the creation of high fields; this item describes the rapid measurement of high fields. Physicists from the Tata Institute and the Institute for Plasma Research in India have recorded in detail, for the first time, the huge magnetic spike encountered by atoms in a sample bearing the brunt of an intense laser shot.

Fields as great as 27 megagauss, roughly 50 million times the strength of Earth's magnetic field, come about very quickly in the following way: the 1016-watt/cm2 pump laser beam strikes an aluminum target, the surface layer of atoms is quickly ionized, and a stream of very fast electrons is released into the body of the target, inducing the huge field.

Many high-power lasers around the world study the effects of intense light upon a solid sample. The chief achievement of the Indian researchers is to look at this process with unprecedented temporal precision, monitoring the rising magnetic field in femtosecond intervals by watching the polarization of a delayed secondary laser beam reflected from the particle plasma engulfing the sample.

Femtosecond knowledge of megagauss fields might have a bearing on designs for nuclear fusion reactions, and for studying other subjects where high magnetic fields are important—NMR, Hall effect, and perhaps even fast magnetic information storage and switching devices. (Sandhu et al., Physical Review Letters, 25 November 2002; contact G. Ravindra Kumar, Tata Institute, grk@tifr.res.in; 91-22-2152971 x 2381; www.tifr.res.in )

These Ultrashort pulse can cause actually eject electron and even Proton from atom create ion..Thus ion cannon...