Аннотация:The paper describes an experimental study of the characteristics of a pulse-modulated radio-frequency discharge sustained at low pressures, typical of the operating modes of radio-frequency gridded ion sources. The motivation for the study is the question of whether the RF pulse-modulated mode can increase the efficiency of the ion source. The ion current values extracted from a radio-frequency inductive ion source operating in continuous and pulse-modulated modes were compared. The experimental data were also compared with the parameter calculations based on a 0-dimensional numerical model of the discharge. The measurements showed that the pulse-modulated operation mode of the radio-frequency ion source had a noticeable advantage at the powers of the radio-frequency generator of 140 W and lower. However, as the generator power increased, the advantage was lost, because the pulse-modulated operation mode, having higher instant value of RF power, sooner than the continuous mode entered the region of existence, where the ion production cost begins to grow with RF power.