High current vacuum arc ion source for heavy ion fusion

Summary form only given. Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) is one of the approaches for the controlled thermonuclear power production. A source of heavy ions with charge states 1+ to 2+, in /spl ap/0.5 A current beams with 20 /spl mu/s pulse widths and /spl sim/10 Hz repetition rates are required. Thermionic sources have been the workhorse for the HIF program to date, but suffer from slow turn-on, heating problems for large areas, are limited to low (contact) ionization potential elements and offer relatively low ion fluxes with a charge state limited to 1+. Gas injection sources suffer from partial ionization and deleterious neutral gas effects. The above shortcomings of the thermionic ion sources can be overcome by a vacuum arc ion source. The vacuum arc ion source is a good candidate for HIF applications. It is capable of providing ions of various elements and different charge states, in short and long pulse bursts, with low emittance and high beam currents. A Gd ion source has been developed at LLNL development details are given.