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

In order to support the design,manufacture and commissioning of the negativeion-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.     

Progress of the RF negative hydrogen ion source for fusion at HUST

Huazhong University of Science and Technology has developed an experimental setup of a radio frequency (RF) driven negative hydrogen ion source, to investigate the physics of production and extraction of the H− ions for neutral beam injection in nuclear fusion reactors. The main design parameters of the ion source are: RF power ≤40 kW; extraction voltage ≤10 kV; accelerator voltage ≤20 kV. This paper gives an overview of the progress of the ion source with particular emphasis on some issues. The RF driver and source plasma are analyzed and optimized in terms of impedance matching, plasma characteristics and power coupling. In regard to the simulation analysis, a plasma model based on the particle-in-cell method and a beam trajectory model considering beam stripping loss are developed to investigate the plasma and negative ions transport inside the ion source. Furthermore, a collisional radiative model of H and H2 is built for plasma optical diagnosis.     

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.     

RADI—A RF source size-scaling experiment towards the ITER neutral beam negative ion source

IPP Garching is currently developing a negative hydrogen ion RF source for the ITER neutral beam system. The source demonstrated already current densities in excess of the ITER requirements (>200 A/m² D⁻) at the required source pressure and electron/ion ratio, but with only small extraction area and limited pulse length. A new test facility (RADI) went recently into operation for the demonstration of the required (plasma) homogeneity of a large RF source and the modular driver concept.The source with the dimension of 0.8 m × 0.76 m has roughly the width and half the height of the ITER source; its modular driver concept will allow an easy extrapolation in only one direction to the full size ITER source. The RF power supply consists of two 180 kW, 1 MHz RF generators capable of 30 s pulses. A dummy grid matches the conductance of the ITER source. Full size extraction is presently not possible due to the lack of an insulator, a large size extraction system and a beam dump.The main parameters determining the performance of this “half-size” source are the negative ion and electron density in front of the grid as well as the homogeneity of their profiles across the grid. Those will be measured by optical emission and cavity ring down spectroscopy, by Langmuir probes and laser detachment. These methods have been calibrated to the extracted current densities achieved at the smaller source test facilities at IPP for similar source parameters. However, in order to get some information about the possible ion and electron currents, local single aperture extraction with a Faraday cup system is planned.     

中子管用PIG负氢离子源及其束流引出实验研究

PIG离子源用于中子管引出正离子,但在使用过程中存在一定问题,如单原子离子比低、靶材料溅射严重及功耗大等。为解决这些问题,提高中子管的寿命和稳定性,本文设计一种中子管用PIG负氢离子源,并对其束流引出进行实验研究。分别测量了离子源的磁场、不同阴极材料及引出阴极离子发射孔径对引出负氢离子束流的影响。实验数据表明,该负氢离子源可用于制作性能指标良好的中子管。     

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.     

Preliminary results of optical emission spectroscopy by line ratio method in the RF negative ion source at ASIPP

Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) using the trace rare gases of Ar and Xe have been carried out in a radio frequency (RF) driven negative ion source at Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Science (ASIPP), in order to determine the electron temperature and density of the hydrogen plasma. The line-ratio methods based on population models are applied to describe the radiation process of the excited state particles and establish their relations with the plasma parameters. The spectral lines from the argon and xenon excited state atoms with the wavelength of 750.4 and 828.0 nm are used to calculate the electron temperature based on the corona model. The argon ions emission lines with the wavelength of 480 and 488 nm are selected to calculate the electron density based on the collisional radiative model. OES has given the preliminary results of the electron temperature and density by varying the discharge gas pressure and RF power. According to the experimental results, the typical plasma parameters is T_e ≈ 2–4 eV and n_e ≈ 1×10 ¹⁷– 8×10¹⁷ m⁻³ in front of plasma grid.     

Development of Powerful RF Plasma Sources for Present and Future NBI Systems

This paper deals with the topic of RF plasma sources and their application in high-power neutral beam heating systems for nuclear fusion devices. RF sources represent an interesting alternative to the conventional arc discharge sources. Due to the absence of hot filaments they exhibit an inherent simplicity both in mechanical and electrical aspects and consequently offer advantages in terms of cost savings, gain in availability and reliability and reduced maintenance. This renders the RF plasma source attractive for any long pulse (> 10 sec) NBI system and in particular for the ITER NBI system. The latter, however, requires that the RF plasma source is also capable of delivering negative rather than positive hydrogen ions.In the first part of the paper the types, characteristics and operation experience of RF plasma sources for positive ions in operation are described. The second part is devoted to the development for ITER NBI: the basic requirements, physics and technology issues and the present status     

Transient Behavior of Negative Hydrogen Ion Extraction from Plasma

For plasma source,the extraction of negative ions is quite diferent from that of positive ions.To understand the efect of extraction field on plasma,the time-dependent behavior of negative hydrogen ion extraction from a negative ion source has been studied by particle-in-cell simulation in the collisionless limit.The simulations have shown that,due to the diference in dynamics between electrons and ions,the imbalance of the numbers of charged particles occurs in the source,results in the broadening of plasma sheath and the great increase of plasma potential.The resultant high sheath field and the ambipolar electric field in plasma make the negatively charged particles congregate inside the sheath and move toward the extraction outlet.The emission area of negative ions is much smaller than that of the extraction aperture,which is in sharp contrast to the case of positive ion extraction.     

Commissioning and first results of the ITER-relevant negative ion beam test facility ELISE

The test facility ELISE which was constructed in the last three years at the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP), Garching, is an important intermediate step of the development of the neutral beam system for ITER. ELISE allows gaining an early experience of the performance and operation of large RF driven sources for negative hydrogen ions and will give an important input for the commissioning and the design of the SPIDER and MITICA test facilities at Padua and the ITER neutral beam system. ELISE has gone recently into operation with first plasma and beam pulses. The experiments aim at the demonstration of an ion beam at the required parameters within 2 years of operation until end of 2014, the end of the service contract with F4E for the establishment and exploitation of ELISE.     

Plasma grid design for optimized filter field configuration for the NBI test facility ELISE

Maintenance-free RF sources for negative hydrogen ions with moderate extraction areas (100-200 cm²) have been successfully developed in the last years at IPP Garching in the test facilities BATMAN and MANITU. A facility with larger extraction area (1000 cm²), ELISE, is being designed with a “half-size” ITER-like extraction system, pulsed ion acceleration up to 60 kV for 10 s and plasma generation up to 1 h. Due to the large size of the source, the magnetic filter field (FF) cannot be produced solely by permanent magnets. Therefore, an additional magnetic field produced by current flowing through the plasma grid (PG current) is required. The filter field homogeneity and the interaction with the electron suppression magnetic field have been studied in detail by finite element method (FEM) during the ELISE design phase. Significant improvements regarding the field homogeneity have been introduced compared to the ITER reference design. Also, for the same PG current a 50% higher field in front of the grid has been achieved by optimizing the plasma grid geometry. Hollow spaces have been introduced in the plasma grid for a more homogeneous PG current distribution. The introduction of hollow spaces also allows the insertion of permanent magnets in the plasma grid.     

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.     

Negative ion beam extraction in ROBIN

The RF based single driver ?ve ion source experiment test bed ROBIN (Replica Of BATMAN like source in INDIA) has been set up at Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), India in a technical collaboration with IPP, Garching, Germany. A hydrogen plasma of density 5 × 10¹² cm^?3 is expected in driver region of ROBIN by launching 100 kW RF power into the driver by 1 MHz RF generator. The cesiated source is expected to deliver a hydrogen negative ion beam of 10 A at 35 kV with a current density of 35 mA/cm² as observed in BATMAN.In first phase operation of the ROBIN ion source, a hydrogen plasma has been successfully generated (without extraction system) by coupling 80 kW RF input power through a matching network with high power factor (cos θ > 0.8) and different plasma parameters have been measured using Langmuir probes and emission spectroscopy. The plasma density of 2.5 × 10¹¹ cm^?3 has been measured in the extraction region of ROBIN. For negative hydrogen ion beam extraction in second phase operation, extraction system has been assembled and installed with ion source on the vacuum vessel. The source shall be first operated in volume mode for negative ion beam extraction. The commissioning of the source with high voltage power supply has been initiated.     

Negative ion test facility ELISE—Status and first results

The new test facility ELISE (Extraction from a Large Ion Source Experiment) has been designed and installed since November 2009 at IPP Garching to support the development of the radio frequency driven negative ion source for the Neutral Beam System on ITER. The test facility is now completely assembled; all auxiliary systems have been commissioned and are operational. First plasma and beam operation is starting in October 2012.The source is designed to deliver an ion beam of 20 A of D^? ions, operating at 0.3 Pa source pressure at an electron to ion current ratio below 1. Beam extraction is limited to 60 kV for 10 s every 3 minutes, while plasma operation of the source can be performed continuously for 1 hour. The ion source and extraction system have the same width as the ITER source, but only half the height, i.e. 1 × 1 m² source area with an extraction area of 0.1 m². The aperture pattern of the extraction system and the multi driver source concept stay as close as possible to the ITER design. Easy access to the source for diagnostic tools or modifications allows to analyze and optimize the source performance. Among other possibilities many different magnetic filter field configurations inside the source can be realized to enhance the negative ion extraction and to reduce the co-extraction of electrons. Beam power and profiles are measured by calorimetry and thermography on an inertially cooled target as well as by beam emission spectroscopy. Cs evaporation into the source is done via two dispenser ovens.     

双频加热的LECR3离子源设计及初步的调试

研制成功了一台新的ECR（Electron Cyclotron Resonance）离子源LECR3（Lanzhou ECR No.3）。该离子源能为原子核物理与表面物理研究提供高电荷态离子束流，LECR3的设计主要基于IMP（Institute of Modern Physics）的14.5GHz ECR离子源（Lanzhou ECR No.2），但采用了双频加热、波导直接馈入微波功率及铝制等离子体弧腔等新技术和新方法。另外，LECR3的弧腔容积比LECR2的大，增加可注入的微波功率，可有效地增加引出的高电荷态离子束流的强度。虽然增大了弧腔的内么，但仍然保持径向六极磁铁在弧腔内壁上产生最大磁场强度与LECR2的同样大小。     

The development of data acquisition and control system for extraction power supply of prototype RF ion source

A 16 kV/20 A power supply was developed for the extraction grid of prototype radio frequency (RF) ion source of neutral beam injector.To acquire the state signals of extraction grid power supply (EGPS) and control the operation of the EGPS,a data acquisition and control system has been developed.This system mainly consists of interlock protection circuit board,photoelectric conversion circuit,optical fibers,industrial compact peripheral component interconnect (CPCI) computer and host computer.The human machine interface of host computer delivers commands and data to program of the CPCI computer,as well as offers a convenient client for setting parameters and displaying EGPS status.The CPCI computer acquires the status of the power supply.The system can turn-off the EGPS quickly when the faults of EGPS occur.The system has been applied to the EGPS of prototype RF ion source.Test results show that the data acquisition and control system for the EGPS can meet the requirements of the operation of prototype RF ion source.     

强流溅射源负离子出束实验研究

在离子源实验台架上，利用200型强流溅射离子源进行8种元素的负离子出束实验研究。这些负离子对应元素的电子亲合势大部分接近或小于零，负离子难以形成。实验中尝试使用不同的靶材料和辅助气体产生负离子，以提高负离子束的束流强度。     

Detailed design of the RF source for the 1 MV neutral beam test facility

In the framework of the EU activities for the development of the Neutral Beam Injector for ITER, the detailed design of the Radio Frequency (RF) driven negative ion source to be installed in the 1 MV ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) has been carried out.Results coming from ongoing R&D on IPP test beds [A. Stäbler et al., Development of a RF-Driven Ion Source for the ITER NBI System, this conference] and the design of the new ELISE facility [B. Heinemann et al., Design of the Half-Size ITER Neutral Beam Source Test Facility ELISE, this conference] brought several modifications to the solution based on the previous design.An assessment was carried out regarding the Back-Streaming positive Ions (BSI+) that impinge on the back plates of the ion source and cause high and localized heat loads. This led to the redesign of most heated components to increase cooling, and to different choices for the plasma facing materials to reduce the effects of sputtering.The design of the electric circuit, gas supply and the other auxiliary systems has been optimized. Integration with other components of the beam source has been revised, with regards to the interfaces with the supporting structure, the plasma grid and the flexible connections.In the paper the design will be presented in detail, as well as the results of the analyses performed for the thermo-mechanical verification of the components.     

Studies on the Matching Network of the High Power Radio Frequency Transmitter for the NBI RF Ion Source

A radio frequency (RF) driven ion source has been developed at ASIPP (Institute of Plasma Physics, CAS) for the neutral beam injector with a 1 MHz, 25 kW RF power supply system. The paper describes the studies performed with emphasis on the RF matching network system design based on the dedicated Smith chart analyses to improve and simplify the optimized solution. Also the future RF matching network design was analyzed with the matching transformers which were set between the high-power RF transmitter and the RF driven ion source to isolate the high voltage from the accelerator of the ion source.     

Development of a RF-driven ion source for the ITER NBI system

Extensive R&D work on RF-driven negative hydrogen ion sources carried out at IPP Garching led to the decision of ITER to select this type of source as the new reference source for the ITER NBI system. The principle suitability of the RF source has been demonstrated in a small scale, short pulse length experiment: accelerated current densities, co-extracted electron currents at a source operation pressure, all well inside the range of the ITER requirements have been achieved simultaneously. In subsequent experiments, pulse lengths up to 1 h and the possibility of modularly extending the source to ITER source dimensions were demonstrated. The results achieved at the various IPP test beds, the lessons learnt during optimising the source for negative ion production and extraction as well as the problems still to be solved are summarized. As the next step in support of the NBI development for ITER, IPP plans to build a new test facility for beam extraction from a source of half the size for ITER.