Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T17:06:57.233Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Potential roles for heavy negative ions as driver beams

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2004

L.R. GRISHAM
L.R. GRISHAM
Affiliation:
Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We have performed an initial assessment of the feasibility of producing heavy negative ion beams as drivers for an inertial confinement fusion reactor. Negative ion beams offer the potentially important advantages relative to positive ions that they will not draw electrons from surfaces and the target chamber plasma during acceleration, compression, and focusing, and they will not have a low energy tail. Intense negative ion beams could also be efficiently converted to atomically neutral beams by photodetachment prior to entering the target chamber. Depending on the target chamber pressure, this atomic beam will undergo ionization as it crosses the chamber, but at chamber pressures at least as high as 1.3 × 10−4 torr, there may still be significant improvements in the beam spot size on the target, due to the reduction in path-averaged self-field perveance. The halogens, with their large electron affinities, are the best negative ion candidates. Fluorine and chlorine are the easiest halogens to use for near-term source experiments, whereas bromine and iodine best meet present expectations of driver mass. With regard to ion sources and photodetachment neutralizers, this approach should be feasible with existing technology. Except for the target chamber, the vacuum requirements for accelerating and transporting high energy negative ions are essentially the same as for positive ions.

Keywords

HalogensHIFNegative ionsNeutral atomic beamPhoto detachment
Type
Research Article
Information
Laser and Particle Beams , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 2003 , pp. 545 - 548
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Callahan, D.A. (1996). Chamber propagation physics for heavy ion fusion. Fus. Eng. Design 32–33, 441–452.Google Scholar
Fink, J.H., Barr, W.L. & Hamilton, G.W. (1979). Efficient high-power high-energy neutral beams for the reference mirror reactor. IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. PS-7, 21–34.Google Scholar
Grisham, L.R. (2001). Possible impact of multi-electron loss events on the average beam charge state in an HIF target chamber and a neutral beam approach. Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res. A 464, 315–319.Google Scholar
Grisham, L.R. (2003). Evaluation of negative-ion-beam driver concepts for heavy ion fusion. Fusion Sci. Technol. 43, 191–199.Google Scholar
Grisham, L.R., Post, D., Johnson, B., Jones, K., Barrette, J., Kruse, T., Tserruya, I. & Da-Hai, W. (1982). Efficiencies of gas neutralizers for multi-MeV beams of light negative ions. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 53, 281–284.Google Scholar
Koshkarev, D.G. (1993). Charge-symmetric driver for heavy-ion fusion. Il Nuovo Climento A 106, 1567–1573.Google Scholar
Kuriyama, M. (1997). Initial operation of 500 keV negative-ion based NBI system for JT-60U. Proc. 19th Symp. on Fusion Technology, Lisbon, 16–20 Sept. 1996 (Varandas, C. and Serra, F., eds.), pp. 693–696. New York: Elsevier.
Kwan, J.W., Ahle, L., Beck, D.N., Bieniosek, F.M., Faltens, A., Grote, D., Halaxa, E., Henestoza, E., Herrmansfeldt, W.B., Karpenko, V. & Sangster, T.C. (2001). Ion sources and injectors for HIF induction linacs. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 464, 379–387.Google Scholar
Massey, H.S.W. (1976). Negative Ions ( 3rd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Molvik, A., Moir, R., Jantzen, C. & Peterson, P. (2000). High vacuum operation of a liquid-walled IFE chamber. Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 45, 206.Google Scholar
Mueller, D., Grisham, L.R., Kaganovich, I., Watson, R., Horvath, V., Zakaras, K. & Armel, M. (2001). Multiple electron stripping of 3.4 MeV/amu Kr7+ and Xe11+ in nitrogen. Phys. Plasmas 8, 1753–1756.Google Scholar