• M. Cavenago, T. Kulevoy, S. Petrenko
  INFN/LNL, Legnaro (PD)
• V. Antoni, G. Serianni, P. Veltri
  Consorzio RFX, Associazione Euratom-ENEA sulla Fusione, Padova

The development of neutral beam injectors (NBI) for tokamak like the ITER project and beyond requires high performance and huge negative ion sources (40 A of D- beam required); it was recently accepted that inductive plasma coupled (ICP) radiofrequency sources are the preferred option. It is therefore useful to have a moderate size source of modular design to test and verify both construction technologies and components and simulation codes; here the NIO1 design (60 kV, 9 beamlets of 15 mA H^- each) and construction status are described. Source is assembled from disk shaped modules, for rapid replacement; the beamlets are arranged in 3 times 3 square matrix so that 90 degree rotation of modules is possible and allows to cross or to align the magnetic filters used in the source. The 2 MHz rf coil and the rf window are a simply replaceable module. Extensive rf absorption and magnetic coil simulations were performed. Related beam simulation and fast emittance scanner development are described elsewhere.