Achievement of 500 keV negative ion beam acceleration on JT-60U negative-ion-based neutral beam injector

Kojima, Atsushi; Hanada, Masaya; Tanaka, Yutaka*; Kawai, Mikito*; Akino, Noboru; Kazawa, Minoru; Komata, Masao; Mogaki, Kazuhiko; Usui, Katsutomi; Sasaki, Shunichi; Kikuchi, Katsumi; Seki, Norikatsu; Nemoto, Shuji; Oshima, Katsumi; Shimizu, Tatsuo; Kubo, Naoya; Oasa, Kazumi; Inoue, Takashi; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; Taniguchi, Masaki; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Tobari, Hiroyuki; Umeda, Naotaka; Kobayashi, Shinichi*; Yamano, Yasushi*; Grisham, L. R.*

Hydrogen negative ion beams of 490 keV, 3 A and 510 keV, 1 A have been successfully produced in the JT-60 negative ion source with three acceleration stages. These successful productions of the high-energy beams at high current have been achieved by overcoming the most critical issue, i.e., a poor voltage holding of the large negative ion sources with the grids of 2 m for JT-60SA and ITER. To improve voltage holding capability, the breakdown voltages for the large grids was examined for the first time. It was found that a vacuum insulation distance for the large grids was 6-7 times longer than that for the small-area grid (0.02 m). From this result, the gap lengths between the grids were tuned in the JT-60 negative ion source. The modification of the ion source also realized a significant stabilization of voltage holding and a short conditioning time. These results suggest a practical use of the large negative ion sources in JT-60SA and ITER.