RF plasma source for heavy ion beam charge neutralization

Author

Efthimion, Philip C. ; Gilson, Erik ; Grisham, Larry ; Davidson, Ronald C. ; Yu, Simon S. ; Logan, B. Grant

Author_Institution

Plasma Phys. Lab., Princeton Univ., NJ, USA

Volume

4

fYear

2003

fDate

12-16 May 2003

Firstpage

2661

Abstract

Highly ionized plasmas are being used as a medium for charge neutralizing heavy ion beams in order to focus the ion beam to a small spot size. A radio frequency (RF) plasma source has been built at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in support of the joint Neutralized Transport Experiment (NTX) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to study ion beam neutralization with plasma. The goal is to operate the source at pressures ∼10^-5 Torr at full ionization. The initial operation of the source has been at pressures of 10^-4-10^-5 Torr and electron densities in the range of 10⁸-10¹¹ cm^-3. Recently, pulsed operation of the source has enabled operation at pressures in the 10^-6 Torr range with densities of 10¹¹ cm^-3. Near 100% ionization has been achieved. The source has been integrated with the NTX facility and experiments have begun.

Keywords

accelerator RF systems; ion accelerators; ion beams; particle beam focusing; particle beam fusion accelerators; plasma diagnostics; plasma sources; Neutralized Transport Experiment; RF plasma source; electron densities; heavy ion beam charge neutralization; ion beam focussing; ionization; pulsed operation; radio frequency plasma source; spot size; Cyclotrons; Electrons; Ion beams; Particle beams; Plasma density; Plasma sources; Plasma transport processes; Radio frequency; Solenoids; Spirals;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Particle Accelerator Conference, 2003. PAC 2003. Proceedings of the

ISSN

1063-3928

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7738-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PAC.2003.1289222

Filename

1289222