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.
