Development of a plasma generator for a long pulse ion source for neutral beam injectors

Watanabe, Kazuhiro; Dairaku, Masayuki; Tobari, Hiroyuki; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Inoue, Takashi; Hanada, Masaya; Jeong, S. H.*; Chang, D. H.*; Kim, T. S.*; Kim, B. R.*; Seo, C. S.*; Jin, J. T.*; Lee, K. W.*; In, S. R.*; Oh, B. H.*; Kim, J.*; Bae, Y. S.*

A long pulse plasma generator for neutral beam injectors has been developed. The plasma generator was designed to produce 65 A at 120 keV from a beam extraction area of 12 cm 46 cm. A type of the plasma generator is a multi-cusp plasma generator with SmCo permanent magnets. A long pulse test of the plasma generator was performed at the KSTAR NBI test stand in Korea under the Japan - Korea Fusion collaboration. It was successfully demonstrated of the long pulse operation of the plasma generator for 200 s at an arc discharge power of 70 kW which can produce 65 A beams. Plasma spatial uniformity at the beam extraction area was confirmed to be smaller than 8% of the deviation from an averaged ion saturation current density. A high arc efficiency of 0.9-1.1 A/kW was obtained at the beam extraction with 73 keV, 41 A for 5 sec. From these experimental studies, a performance of this plasma generator for long pulse ion sources was confirmed.