Experimental results of a magnetic field modification to the radio frequency driver of a negative ion source

A magnetic field produced by a current flowing through the plasma grid(PG) is one of the solutions to reduce the collisional loss of negative ions in a negative ion source, which reduces the electron temperature in front of the PG. However, the magnetic field diffused into the driver has some influence on the plasma outflowing. In order to investigate the effect of changing this magnetic field on the outflowing of plasma from the driver, a circular ring(absorber) of high permeability iron has been introduced at the driver exit, which can reduce the magnetic field around it and improve plasma outflowing. With the application of the absorber, the electron density is increased by about 35%, and the extraction current measured from the extraction grid is increased from 1.02 A to 1.29 A. The results of the extraction experiment with cesium injection show that both the extraction grid(EG) current and H-current are increased when the absorber is introduced.

Characteristics of the pressure profile in the accelerator on the RF negative ion source at ASIPP

Neutral beam injection(NBI)systems based on negative hydrogen ion sources-rather than the positive ion sources that have typically been used to date-will be used in the future magnetically confined nuclear fusion experiments to heat the plasma.The collisions between the fast negative ions and neutral background gas result in a significant number of high-energy positive ions being produced in the acceleration area,and for the high-power long-pulse operation of NBI systems,this acceleration of positive ions back to the ion source creates heat load and material sputtering on the source backplate.This difficulty cannot be ignored,with the neutral gas density in the acceleration region having a significant impact on the flux density of the backstreaming positive ions.In the work reported here,the pressure gradient in the acceleration region was estimated using an ionization gauge and a straightforward 1D computation,and it was found that once gas traveled through the acceleration region,the pressure dropped by nearly one order of magnitude,with the largest pressure drop occurring at the plasma grid.The computation also revealed that the pressure drop in the grid gaps was substantially smaller than that in the grid apertures.

Design and preliminary results of beam return on of high power ion source

Long pulse operation of high power ion source is the requirement of fusion science research on neutral beam injector. A breakdown of accelerator column is drastically increased when operating with high beam energy and long beam duration. To extend the pulse length, which was stopped with every breakdown so far, the beam re-starting technology was developed and utilized. As a result, the voltage drop of every power supply due to breakdown was recovered within a time of 90 ms and beam pulse length was extended much longer than the case before this improvement. The details of the beam re-starting technology and the preliminary results were presented in this manuscript.

The Arc Regulation Characteristics of the High-Current Ion Source for the EAST Neutral Beam Injector

The arc regulation method is applied to the high-current ion source for high-power hydrogen ion beam extraction for the first time. The characteristics of the arc and beam, including the probe ion saturation current, the arc power and the beam current, are studied with feedback control. The results show that the arc regulation method can be successfully applied to ion beam extraction. This lays a sound foundation for the testing of a new ion source and the operation of a conditioned ion source for neutral beam injector devices.

Continuous operation of 2.45-GHz microwave proton source for 306 hours with more than 50 mA DC beam

This paper describes a long-term operation of the 2.45-GHz microwave proton source at Peking University. The DC proton beam of 50–55 mA with energy of 35 keV has been run for 306 hours continuously. Total beam availability,defined as 35-keV beam-on time divided by elapsed time, is higher than 99%. Water cooling machine failures cause all the downtime, and no plasma generator failure or high voltage breakdown is observed. The longest uninterrupted run time is122 hours.

Design of the Prototype Negative Ion Source for Neutral Beam Injector at ASIPP

In order to support the design, manufacture and commissioning of the negative- ion-based neutral beam injection （NBI） system for the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor （CFETR）, the Hefei utility negative ion test equipment with RF source （HUNTER） was proposed at ASIPP. A prototype negative ion source will be developed at first. The main bodies of plasma source and accelerator of the prototype negative ion source are similar to that of the ion source for EAST-NBI. But instead of the filament-arc driver, an RF driver is adopted for the prototype negative ion source to fulfill the requirement of long pulse operation. A cesium seeding system and a magnetic filter are added for enhancing the negative ion density near the plasma grid and minimizing co-extracted electrons. Besides, an ITER-like extraction system is applied inside the accelerator, where the negative ion beam is extracted and accelerated up to 50 kV.

First results of negative ion extraction with Cs for CRAFT prototype negative beam source

In order to understand the physics and pre-study the engineering issues for radio frequency(RF)negative beam source,a prototype source with a single driver and three-electrode accelerator was developed.Recently,the beam source was tested on the RF source test facility with RF plasma generation,negative ion production and extraction.A magnetic filter system and a Cs injection system were employed to enhance the negative ion production.As a result,a long pulse of 105 s negative ion beam with current density of 153 A m-2 was repeatedly extracted successfully.The source pressure is 0.6 Pa and the ratio of co-extracted electron and negative ion current is around0.3.The details of design and experimental results of beam source were shown in this letter.

Influence of magnetic filter field on the radio-frequency negative hydrogen ion source of neutral beam injector for China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor

In the design of negative hydrogen ion sources,a magnetic filter field of tens of Gauss at the expansion region is essential to reduce the electron temperature,which usually results in a magnetic field of around 10 Gauss in the driver region,destabilizing the discharge.The magnetic shield technique is proposed in this work to reduce the magnetic field in the driver region and improve the discharge characteristics.In this paper,a three-dimensional fluid model is developed within COMSOL to study the influence of the magnetic shield on the generation and transport of plasmas in the negative hydrogen ion source.It is found that when the magnetic shield material is applied at the interface of the expansion region and the driver region,the electron density can be effectively increased.For instance,the maximum of the electron density is 6.7×10^(17)m^(-3)in the case without the magnetic shield,and the value increases to 9.4×10^(17)m^(-3)when the magnetic shield is introduced.

Estimation of Ion Beam Trajectories for a Slot Aperture Accelerator of Long-Pulse Ion Source in Neutral Beam Injector

A neutral beam injection (NBI) system has been developed and is being tested for an Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) device. The NBI system needs to be employed for an auxiliary heating and current drive of EAST plasmas. The first long pulse ion source (LPIS-1) has been installed in the neutral beam test bed (NBTB) system, and the performance is being tested in the NBTB. The LPIS-1 consists of a magnetic bucket plasma generator with multipole cusp-fields and a set of tetrode accelerators with slit-type apertures (a transparency of 60%). The ion beam trajectories of the accelerator column are estimated for the LPIS-1, including an original structure, with the change of slit aperture distance, plasma grid shape, grid gap distance, and voltage ratio between a plasma grid and a gradient grid using the IGUN code. This kind of calculation for the ion beam trajectory may be useful for the estimation of beam extraction characteristics and the direction of accelerator upgrade or modification, prior to the experiments of ion beam extraction.

Achievement of 1000 s plasma generation of RF source for neutral beam injector

A radio frequency(RF) ion source was developed for neutral beam injector in Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences(ASIPP). A cylindrical driver based RF plasma source was tested and optimized for long pulse operation. Recently, the plasma source achieved 1000 s stable plasma discharge with RF power of 35 k W and source pressure of 0.7 Pa for the first time.The heat loading on each of driver components such as the Faraday shield(FS), RF coil and expansion chamber was measured by the water flow calorimeter system. The experiment results showed that FS is the component with highest heat loading and the heat loading on FS was about 65.8% of total heat loading on source. The details of the long pulse operation of RF plasma source are presented in this paper.

Deposition of diamond like carbon films by using a single ion gun with varying beam source

Diamond like carbon films have been successfully deposited on the steel substrate, by using a single ion gun with varying beam source. The films may appear blue, yellow and transparent in color, which was found related to contaminants from the sample holder and could be avoided. The thickness of the films ranges from tens up to 200 nanometers, and the hardness is in the range 20 to 30 GPa. Raman analytical results reveal the films are in amorphous structure. The effects of different beam source on the films structure are further discussed.

Analysis of the characteristics of the plasma of an RF driven ion source for a neutral beam injector

A radio frequency(RF)driven ion source is a very important component of a neutral beam injector for large magnetic confinement fusion devices.In order to study the key technology and physics of an RF driven ion source for a neutral beam injector in China,an RF ion source test facility was developed at the Institute of Plasma Physics,Chinese Academy of Sciences.In this paper,a two-dimensional fluid model is used to simulate the fundamental physical characteristics of RF plasma discharge.Simulation results show the relationship of the characteristics of plasma(such as electron density and electron temperature)and RF power and gas pressure.In order to verify the effectiveness of the model,the characteristics of the plasma are investigated using a Langmuir probe.In this paper,experimental and simulation results are presented,and the possible reasons for the discrepancies between them are given.This paper can help us understand the characteristics of RF plasma discharge,and give a basis for further R&D for an RF ion source.

Ion Source Optimisation for Proton Beam Quality of the Van De Graaff Accelerator at iThemba LABS for Ion Beam Analysis

The operating principles of the two duoplasmatron ion sources and the PIG source available for the Van de Graaff accelerator have been determined qualitatively, mainly by studying the extensive literature on ion sources. The main characteristics of the three sources have therefore been determined experimentally on an ion source test bench. Important parameters of the sources such as the pressure and temperature in different regions of the sources not measured, because of space limitations. However, in spite of these limitations in quantitative understanding of the sources, sufficient information to continue with the study of the beam transport through the Van de Graaff accelerator and its beamlines could be obtained from these measurements. With regard to beam intensity, lifetime and gas consumption the measurements showed that the hotcathode duoplasmatron is at present by far the most suitable source for the van de Graaff accelerator. The emittance of the ion source was measured with two slits, 90 mm apart, and a Faraday cup in the ion source test bench at an arc voltage of 83 V, an arc current of 1 Amp, a filament voltage of 24 V and an extraction voltage of 5 kV. The measured emittance for 90% of the beam intensity is 48π mm mrad. This figure will be used to calculate the beam transmission through the Van de Graaf accelerator. Different computer programs have been used for these calculations from the ion source through the terminal section, the accelerator and beam line up to the Nuclear Microprobe (NMP) for beam quality.

Discharge Characteristics of Large-Area High-Power RF Ion Source for Positive and Negative Neutral Beam Injectors

A large-area high-power radio-frequency（RF） driven ion source was developed for positive and negative neutral beam injectors at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute（KAERI）. The RF ion source consists of a driver region, including a helical antenna and a discharge chamber, and an expansion region. RF power can be transferred at up to 10 kW with a fixed frequency of 2 MHz through an optimized RF matching system. An actively water-cooled Faraday shield is located inside the driver region of the ion source for the stable and steady-state operations of high-power RF discharge. Plasma ignition of the ion source is initiated by the injection of argongas without a starter-filament heating, and the argon-gas is then slowly exchanged by the injection of hydrogen-gas to produce pure hydrogen plasmas. The uniformities of the plasma parameter,such as a plasma density and an electron temperature, are measured at the lowest area of the driver region using two RF-compensated electrostatic probes along the direction of the shortand long-dimensions of the driver region. The plasma parameters will be compared with those obtained at the lowest area of the expansion bucket to analyze the plasma expansion properties from the driver region to the expansion region.

Development of data acquisition and over-current protection systems for a suppressor-grid current with a neutral-beam ion source

Neutral beam injection is one of the effective auxiliary heating methods in magnetic-confinementfusion experiments. In order to acquire the suppressor-grid current signal and avoid the grid being damaged by overheating, a data acquisition and over-current protection system based on the PXI（PCI e Xtensions for Instrumentation） platform has been developed. The system consists of a current sensor, data acquisition module and over-current protection module. In the data acquisition module,the acquired data of one shot will be transferred in isolation and saved in a data-storage server in a txt file. It can also be recalled using NBWave for future analysis. The over-current protection module contains two modes： remote and local. This gives it the function of setting a threshold voltage remotely and locally, and the forbidden time of over-current protection also can be set by a host PC in remote mode. Experimental results demonstrate that the data acquisition and overcurrent protection system has the advantages of setting forbidden time and isolation transmission.

RF Ion Beam Sources Used in Etching

Ion beam technology is used widely in many fields such as electric, material, optics, medicine, biology and so on. At the same time, it brings some huge technological effects and economical benefits, especially for the optical applocations. According for the technology, the properties of high accuarate spectral analyzer also can be improved by manufacturing the lage-area holographic ion beam eathing（HIBE） grating. Simultaneously, as one of the parts of ion beam technology, the developments of ion beam sources have some important effects to content the demands of ion beam technology such as large ion beam flux, excellent optical qualities. In this paper, an ion beam source called inductively coupled plasma（ICP） ion beam source was introduced, and the extractor system, the application prospect were also discussed.

Production of intense highly charged ion beams by IMP 14.5 GHz electron cyclotron resonance ion source

A new 14.5 GHz Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source has been constructed over the last two years. The source was designed and tested by making use of the latest results from ECR ion source development, such as high mirror magnetic field, large plasma volume, and biased probe. 140uA of O^7+, 185uA of Ar^11+ and 50uA of Xe^26+ could be produced with a RF power of 800 W. The intense beams of highly charged metallic ions are produced by means of the method of a metal evaporation oven and volatile compound through axial access. The test results are 130uA of Ca^11+, 70uA of Ca^12+ and 65uA of Fe^lo+. The ion source has been put into operation for the cyclotron at the institute of Modern Physics (IMP).

Hefei utility negative ions test equipment with RF source:commissioning and first results

In order to study the key technology and physics of RF driven negative ion source for neutral beam injector in China, the Hefei utility negative ions test equipment with RF source was developed at Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（ASIPP）. Its negative ion source can be equipped with single or double RF drivers. There is a plasma expansion chamber with depth of 19 mm and an enhanced filter field. A three electrodes negative ion accelerator was employed to extract and accelerate the negative ions, which are plasma grid,extraction grid and ground grid. And there are several diagnostic tools for the plasma and beam parameters measurement. The characteristics of plasma generation, negative ion production and extraction were studied on the test equipment. The negative ion beam was extracted from the RF driven negative ion source for the first time. The detailed structure and main results are presented in this article.

Practical 2.45-GHz microwave-driven Cs-free Hˉ ion source developed at Peking University

A practical 2.45-GHz microwave-driven Cs-free H^- source was improved based on the experimental H^- source at Peking University（PKU）. Several structural improvements were implemented to meet the practical requirements of Xi＇an Proton Application Facility（XiPaf）. Firstly, the plasma chamber size was optimized to enhance the plasma intensity and stability. Secondly, the filter magnetic field and electron deflecting magnetic field were enhanced to reduce co-extracted electrons. Thirdly, a new two-electrode extraction system with farther electrode gap and enhanced water cooling ability to diminish spark and sputter during beam extraction was applied. At last, the direct H^- current measuring method was adopted by the arrangement of a new pair of bending magnets before Faraday cup（FC） to remove residual electrons. With these improvements, electron cyclotron resonance（ECR） magnetic field optimization experiments and operation parameter variation experiments were carried out on the H^- ion source and a maximum 8.5-mA pure H^- beam was extracted at 50 kV with the time structure of 100 Hz/0.3 ms. The root-mean-square（RMS） emittance of the beam is 0.25 Π·mm·mrad. This improved H^- source and extraction system were maintenance-free for more than 200 hours in operation.

A miniaturized 2.45 GHz ECR ion source at Peking University

A miniaturized 2.45 GHz permanent magnet electron cyclotron resonance（PMECR） ion source, which has the ability of producing a tens-m A H＋beam, has been built and tested at Peking University（PKU）. Its plasma chamber dimension is Φ30 mm×40 mm and the whole size of the ion source is Φ180 mm×130 mm. This source has a unique structure with the whole source body embedded into the extraction system. It can be operated in both continuous wave（CW） mode and pulse mode. In the CW mode, more than 20 m A hydrogen ion beam at 40 k V can be obtained with the microwave power of 180 W and about 1 m A hydrogen ion beam is produced with a microwave power of 10 W. In the pulse mode, more than50 m A hydrogen ion beam with a duty factor of 10% can be extracted when the peak microwave power is 1800 W.