An Approach towards a Long-life, Microwave-assisted H - Ion Source for Proton Drivers

Abstract. This paper reports on experiments aimed at developing a new high-intensity H -ion source with long lifetime whose concept had recently been introduced. Starting from the motivation for this effort, several steps of the earlier development work are recapitulated, and the performance of the latest design variant is discussed in detail. The basic concept consists in coupling an ECR ion source to a standard SNS multi-cusp H -ion source that is driven by pulsed dc, rather than rf, power. As a key result, an electron beam of 1.5 A current has been extracted from the ECR discharge operating at 1.9 kW c. w. power, and a maximum discharge current of 17.5 A was achieved in the H -ion source. Production of H -ions, however could not yet been demonstrated in the one, preliminary, experiment conducted so far. The paper concludes by outlining further envisaged development steps for the plasma generator and an expansion towards a novel extraction system

An Approach towards a Long-life, Microwave-assisted H- Ion Soucre for Proton Drivers

This paper reports on experiments aimed at developing a new high-intensity H{sup -} ion source with long lifetime whose concept had recently been introduced. Starting from the motivation for this effort, several steps of the earlier development work are recapitulated, and the performance of the latest design variant is discussed in detail. The basic concept consists in coupling an ECR ion source to a standard SNS multi-cusp H{sup -} ion source that is driven by pulsed dc, rather than rf, power. As a key result, an electron beam of 1.5 A current has been extracted from the ECR discharge operating at 1.9 kW c. w. power, and a maximum discharge current of 17.5 A was achieved in the H{sup -} ion source. Production of H{sup -} ions, however could not yet been demonstrated in the one, preliminary, experiment conducted so far. The paper concludes by outlining further envisaged development steps for the plasma generator and an expansion towards a novel extraction system