LBNL, Berkeley, California
Funding: This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.
To uniformly heat targets to electron-volt temperatures for the study of warm dense matter, one strategy is to deposit most of the ion energy at the peak of energy loss (dE/dx) with a low (E < 5 MeV) kinetic energy beam and a thin target*. Lower mass ions have a peak dE/dx at a lower kinetic energy. To this end, a small lithium (Li+) alumino-silicate source has been fabricated, and its emission limit has been measured. These surface ionization sources are heated to {10}00-1150 C where they preferentially emit singly ionized alkali ions. Alumino-silicates sources of K+ and Cs+ have been used extensively in beam experiments, but there are additional challenges for the preparation of high-quality Li+ sources: There are tighter tolerances in preparing and sintering the alumino-silicate to the substrate to produce an emitter that gives uniform ion emission, sufficient current density and low beam emittance. We report on recent measurements of high ( up to 35 mA/cm2) current density from a Li+ source. Ion species identification of possible contaminants is being verified with a Wien (E x B) filter, and via time-of-flight.
*J.J. Barnard et al., Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 577 (2007) 275283.
LBNL, Berkeley, California
PPPL, Princeton, New Jersey
Funding: This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.
Recent changes to the NDCX beamline offer the promise of higher current compressed bunches, with correspondingly larger fluences, delivered to the target plane for ion-beam driven warm dense matter experiments. We report modeling and commissioning results of the upgraded NDCX beamline that includes a new induction bunching module with approximately twice the volt-seconds and greater tuning flexibility, combined with a longer neutralized drift compression channel.
PPPL, Princeton, New Jersey
LLNL, Livermore, California
LBNL, Berkeley, California
Voss Scientific, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Funding: Research supported by the US Department of Energy.
Neutralized drift compression offers an effective means for particle beam focusing and current amplification. In neutralized drift compression, a linear radial and longitudinal velocity drift is applied to a beam pulse, so that the beam pulse compresses as it drifts in the focusing section. The beam intensity can increase more than a factor of 100 in both the radial and longitudinal directions, totaling to more than a 10,000 times increase in the beam density during this process. The optimal configuration of focusing elements to mitigate the time-dependent focal plane is discussed in this paper. The self-electric and self-magnetic fields can prevent tight ballistic focusing and have to be neutralized by supplying neutralizing electrons. This paper presents a survey of the present numerical modeling techniques and theoretical understanding of plasma neutralization of intense particle beams. Investigations of intense beam pulse interaction with a background plasma have identified the operating regimes for stable and neutralized propagation of intense charged particle beams.
LBNL, Berkeley, California
LLNL, Livermore, California
PPPL, Princeton, New Jersey
Voss Scientific, Albuquerque, New Mexico
The Heavy-Ion Fusion Sciences Virtual National Laboratory is pursuing an approach to target heating experiments in the warm dense matter regime, using space-charge-dominated ion beams that are simultaneously longitudinally bunched and transversely focused. Longitudinal beam compression by large factors has been demonstrated in the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment (NDCX) with controlled ramps and forced neutralization. Using an injected 30 mA K+ ion beam with initial kinetic energy 0.3 MeV, axial compression leading to ~100X current amplification and simultaneous radial focusing to a few mm have led to encouraging energy deposition approaching the intensities required for eV-range target heating experiments. We discuss the status of several improvements to NDCX to reach the necessary higher beam intensities, including:
- greater axial compression via a longer velocity ramp;
- beam steering dipoles to mitigate aberrations in the bunching module;
- time-dependent focusing elements to correct considerable chromatic aberrations; and
- plasma injection improvements to establish a plasma density always greater than the beam density, expected to be >1013 cm-3.