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Well, I have a concept for an ion beam cannon, even though ion beams have been used a lot in games and the like, I think I've come up with how one might actually work.

The ion beam cannon collects particles, such as dust, and charges them to be ions. The ions, either negatively or positively charged, are fired from the cannon in a tightly concentrated beam with a magnetic field of the opposite charge surrounding the entire thing. The magnetic field keeps the stream of ions coherent and controlled, while the ions themselves move along forward at incredible speeds. Because the ions are all of the same charge, they repel each other, and being that more ions are being forced out of the cannon, it makes a sort of controlled Domino effect, all the ions' charges repelling each other, with the only way to go being forward, due to the controlled magnetic field, which pretty much pulls the ions in every direction at once except forward and backward.
The result is a highly concentrated beam of ions moving at speeds dangerously close to how fast light might travel. That being said, an ion beam cannon requires massive amounts of energy to stay online, not to mention a steady supply of ions to feed it. A ship would probably have to carry a tank of it's own particles as a reservoir to serve as the ammo for such a weapon, but in an area such as a dust cloud or nebula, it can collect particles from the surroundings to feed it.
There are, however, chaotic side effects to firing an ion beam in a nebula or dust cloud. Due to the nature of the beam, if the beam hits a dense cloud of particles, a chain reaction of ionic charging takes place, resulting in a sort of ion storm. While such a storm would deal little structural damage to a ship if it were caught inside, the electro magnetic effect would wreak havoc on sensors and electrical equipment. Shielded equipment, of course, would probably remain safe in this sort of environment.
The range of the beam is limited by how far the cannon can project it's magnetic control field. After the field dissappates, the ions will quickly disperse, having no bonds to enforce them, and fan out into a wide spread that loses it's fantastic penetrating power. However, a lightly armored craft, such as a fighter, would do well to stay out of this area, as the ions can still rip such a ship's armor clean off.
The ion beam is used almost exclusively for peircing the thick armor of capital ships, although some modules, such as the Helix package, can turn it into a deadly anti-fighter weapon.

For now... I'll not go into how the afformentioned Helix package works, just the concept of the ion beam itself.

It sucks when I have 5 chapters in AP bio to do. gonk