Operation status of the J-PARC ion source

Oguri, Hidetomo; Okoshi, Kiyonori; Ikegami, Kiyoshi*; Yamazaki, Saishun; Takagi, Akira*; Koizumi, Isao; Ueno, Akira

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 8, p.011009_1 - 011009_6, 2015/09

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.8.011009

Positive and negative ion sources for magnetic fusion

Hemsworth, R. S.*; Inoue, Takashi

IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 33(6), p.1799 - 1813, 2005/12

https://doi.org/10.1109/TPS.2005.860090

The positive or negative ion sources which form the primary components of neutral beam injection systems used in magnetic fusion have to meet simultaneously several demanding requirements. This paper describes the underlying physics of modern positive ion sources, which provide the required high proton fraction (90%) and high current density (2 kA/m) at a low source pressure (0.4 Pa) with a high electrical efficiency and uniformity across the accelerator grids. The development of negative ion sources, which are required if high energy neutral beams are to be produced, is explained. The paper reports that negative ion sources have achieved many of the parameters required of sources for the neutral beam injectors of future fusion devices and reactors, 200 A/m of D at low pressure, 0.3 Pa, with low co-extracted electron content. The development needed to meet all the requiremens of future systems is briefly discussed.

R&D on a high energy accelerator and a large negative ion source for ITER

Inoue, Takashi; Taniguchi, Masaki; Morishita, Takatoshi; Dairaku, Masayuki; Hanada, Masaya; Imai, Tsuyoshi*; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Sakamoto, Keishi; Seki, Takayoshi*; Watanabe, Kazuhiro

Nuclear Fusion, 45(8), p.790 - 795, 2005/08

https://doi.org/10.1088/0029-5515/45/8/004

The R&D of a 1 MeV accelerator and a large negative ion source have been carried out at JAERI. The paper presents following progress as a step toward ITER NB system. (1) Accelerator R&D: According to success in improvement of voltage holding capability, the acceleration test of H ions up to 1 MeV class energy is in progress. H ion beams of 1 MeV, 100 mA class have been generated with a substantial beam current density (100 A/m), and the current density is still increasing by the ion source tuning. (2) Large ion source R&D: One of major causes that limited the NB injection performance was spatial unifomity of negative ion production in existing negative-ion based NB systems. The present study revealed that the negative ions produced in the extraction region of the source were locally destructed by fast electrons leaking through magnetic filter. Some countermeasures and their test results are also described.

Acceleration of 100 A/m negative hydrogen ion beams in a 1 MeV vacuum insulated beam source

Taniguchi, Masaki; Inoue, Takashi; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Hanada, Masaya; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; Seki, Takayoshi*; Sakamoto, Keishi

AIP Conference Proceedings 763, p.168 - 175, 2005/04

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1908292

The accelerator for the ITER NB system is required to produce 1 MeV, 40 A D-ion beams for 16.5 MW neutral beam injection per module. In the ITER NB system, conventional gas insulated beam source cannot be adopted because of the radiation-induced conductivity of the insulation gas. Thus a vacuum insulated beam source (VIBS), where the whole beam source is immersed in vacuum, had been developed in JAERI. Recently, voltage holding capability of the VIBS was drastically improved by installing the large stress ring, which reduces the electric field concentration at the negative side triple junction. Having improved the voltage holding capability of the VIBS, the H ion beams were extracted with seeding cesium to enhance the negative ion currents. Up to now, we had been succeeded in accelerating the H beam of 102 A/m (140 mA) at 800 keV. The beam acceleration was quite stable and accomplished for several hundreds shots in several experimental campaigns.

Actively-cooled plasma electrode for long pulse operations in a cesium-seeded negative ion source

Fujiwara, Yukio; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; Okumura, Yoshikazu; Trainham, R.*; Jacquot, C.*

Review of Scientific Instruments, 76(1), p.013501_1 - 013501_5, 2005/01

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1823611

A new actively-cooled plasma electrode has been developed for long pulse operation in a cesium-seeded negative ion source. To keep the electrode temperature at about 300 C, which is optimum range of temperature to enhance cesium effects, the electrode cooling structure has been designed using three-dimensional numerical simulation assuming that the heat flux from the source plasma was 15 W/cm. Water cooling tubes were brazed to the plasma electrode substrate with spacers made of stainless steel which acts as a thermal resistance. The fabricated plasma electrode has been tested in a cesium-seeded volume negative ion source called Kamaboko source. The temperature of the electrode reached 280 C for the arc power of 41 kW, which is operating condition required for producing D- beams with current densities exceeding 20 mA/cm. It was demonstrated that the actively-cooled plasma electrode is applicable to long pulse operations, meeting the temperature requirement for optimizing the surface-production process of negative ions in the cesium seeded ion source.

High proton ratio plasma production in a small negative ion source

Morishita, Takatoshi; Inoue, Takashi; Iga, Takashi*; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; Imai, Tsuyoshi

Review of Scientific Instruments, 75(5), p.1764 - 1766, 2004/05

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1695623

Negative ion beams of high current density are required for accelerator and fusion. The H source utilizes surface production that produces H from H or H. And hence, high proto yield ion source is required. Generally, a large volume plasma generator with strong plasma confinement is suitable to achieve high proton yield. On the contrary, production of high proton ratio plasma is not easy in small sources. However, in a small source (3.5 liter), high current H beam of 800 A/m was obtained. In this research, the proton ratio was investigated experimentally and analytically in a small source (1.4 liter). The measured proton ratio increased form 40% to 90% by applying the magnetic filter. From the numerical analysis, the proton ratio is low as 40% in the driver region. However, with the magnetic filter, flow of primary electrons is restrained, resulting in suppression of H production at the extraction region. In addition, molecular ions are easily destroyed by thermal electrons in the filter region. Thus the proton ratio is enhanced by the magnetic field in the small sources.

Structural integrity of heavy liquid-metal target installed in spallation neutron facility, 4; Consideration by fracture mechanics of target container window

Ishikura, Shuichi*; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Futakawa, Masatoshi; Kikuchi, Kenji; Haga, Katsuhiro; Kaminaga, Masanori; Hino, Ryutaro

JAERI-Tech 2003-093, 55 Pages, 2004/01

JAERI-Tech-2003-093.pdf:5.41MB

To estimate the structural integrity of the heavy liquid-metal (Hg) target used in a MW-class neutron scattering facility, static and dynamic stress behaviors due to the incident of a 1MW-pulsed proton beam were analyzed. In the analyses, two-type target containers with semi-cylindrical type and flat type window were used as analytical models of the structural analysis codes LS-DYNA. As a result, it is confirmed that the stress generated by dynamic thermal shock becomes the largest at the center of window, and the flat type window is more advantageous from the structural viewpoint than the semi-cylindrical type window. It was confirmed to erosion damage the target container by mercury's becoming negative pressure in the window and generating the cavitation by the experiment. Therefore, it has been understood that the point top of the window was in the compression stress field by the steady state thermal stress because of the evaluation from destroying the dynamic viewpoint for the crack in the generated pit and the pit point, and the crack did not progress.

Production mechanism of high proton ratio plasma in a hydrogen arc discharge ion source

Morishita, Takatoshi; Inoue, Takashi; Iga, Takashi*; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Shimizu, Takashi; Taniguchi, Masaki; Hanada, Masaya; Imai, Tsuyoshi

JAERI-Tech 2003-007, 16 Pages, 2003/03

JAERI-Tech-2003-007.pdf:1.28MB

Recently the ion source for IFMIF (International Fusion Material Irradiation facility) achieved positive ion beams of 120 mA with the proton ratio of 90% by applying magnetic filter even in a small ion source. The mechanism of a high proton ration plasma production in such a small ion source has not been studied. Molecular ions are destroyed and the proton is produced from the dissociation of molecular ions in the filter region. Thus the proton yield is enhanced even in the small volume discharge. Using the same numerical method, the plasma production was calculated for the large ion source. The high proton ratio can be easily obtained, where the contribution of proton production by the ionization of H becomes high. From the negative ion production point of view, the negative ion beam current was numerically evaluated. The high atom flux to the plasma grid generates the large amount of negative ions rather than that by the positive ions in Cs-seeded large ion sources.

Development of high performance negative ion sources and accelerators for MeV class neutral beam injectors

Taniguchi, Masaki; Hanada, Masaya; Iga, Takashi*; Inoue, Takashi; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Morishita, Takatoshi; Okumura, Yoshikazu; Shimizu, Takashi*; Takayanagi, Tomohiro*; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; et al.

Proceedings of 19th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2002) (CD-ROM), 5 Pages, 2002/10

A high power neutral beam injector (NBI) has been designed for ITER. A key component of the NBI system is a high power beam source which produces a 40A D ion beams at the energy of 1 MeV. JAERI has developed a vacuum insulated beam source (VIBS). The VIBS insulates the high voltage of 1 MV by immersing the ion source and accelerator in vacuum. So far the VIBS succeeded in acceleration of 37 mA (power supply drain current) beam up to 970 keV for 1 s. The achieved beam energy is nearly equal to the required value for the ITER NBI system. The negative ion source for the ITER beam source has been also developed. One of the key issues for the negative ion source is reduction of the operating pressure. By optimizing the filter magnetic field for negative ion production even at low pressure, a H ion beam of 31 mA/cm was extracted at 0.1 Pa. Although the pulse length was very short (0.1 s) the ITER requirement on the current density was demonstrated at 1/3 of the ITER design pressure (0.3 Pa), which could reduce the heat loading on the accelerator grids.

Neutral beam injectors for ITER and tokamak fusion reactors

Inoue, Takashi

Purazuma, Kaku Yugo Gakkai-Shi, 78(5), p.398 - 404, 2002/05

https://doi.org/10.1585/jspf.78.398

Neutral beam (NB) heating and current drivesystem for ITER fires the energetic particle beams of 1 MeV, 33 MW (16.5 MW/NB injector) into the fusion plasma. The design allows late installation of third NB injector for upgrade in current drive experiment toward steady state operation. The ITER NB system has been designed to fulfill requirements of the plasma physics, including advanced scenario achieved with off-axis current drive by NB. A design overview of the ITER NB system is described. The paper also reports recent R&D status of ion source and accelerator, as key components of the NB system, toward ITER construction. NB heating and current drive performance required in future tokamak reactors are discussed together with the necessary R&D issues.