Compared to conventional low intensity ion sources, high intensity particle beams, derived from pulsed, positive- or negative-ion sources, may offer distinct benefits for applications in beam heating and current drive in fusion reactors, inertial confinement fusion, and space defense. In recent work at the University of California, Irvine we have shownthat pulsed, magnetically-insulated diodes can produce intense beams of positive or negati i ve ions with current densities in the range of (at 0.5 MeV): 10 - 100 A/cm for negative beams and 100 - 1000 A.cm2 for positive beams. The normalized emittance of these intense sources is approximately, ε = 0.02 cm-mrad, which is comparable to existing volume-or surface-ionization negative-ion sources; the beam divergence angle is also comparable, Δθ = 10 mrad. We have also used these same sources to produce intense beams of high atomic number, such as carbon.

Date Published: 25 July 1989
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 1061, Microwave and Particle Beam Sources and Directed Energy Concepts, (25 July 1989); doi: 10.1117/12.951856

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1061:
Microwave and Particle Beam Sources and Directed Energy Concepts
Howard E. Brandt, Editor(s)