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A thermal beam emittance measurement method is developed specifically to measure high power density beams for the ITER neutral beam injection system (NBI)’s. A one-dimensional carbon-fiber composite (CFC) target is utilized to withstand the high current densities of the negative hydrogen beam making the beam emittance measurement possible. Schemes for the emittance measurement were discussed since beam instabilities are present in various stages of the beam phase. The allowable time for the measurement will be less than 2 seconds and it’s necessary to monitor the CFC temperature to not exceed 2000°C. The proposed measurement scheme to minimize beam instabilities is through the constant operation of the arc discharge and pulsed beam extraction. Mechanical structures are also being designed for rapid measurements to select different phases of the beam and for implementing the measurement system to long pulse beam operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high power density and a long pulse negative ion beam accelerator has been developed in QST to realize the ITER neutral beam accelerator. A main target was the H- ion beam acceleration up to 1 MeV with 200 A/m² for 60 s. After the achievement of 1 MeV at a short pulse, the pulse length has been gradually extended by modifications of grid configurations to suppress grid heat loads due to negative ions and electrons. However, the beam energy was limited up to 0.7 MeV at 60 s operation. One issue was an unstable negative ion production for a long time due to arcing and excess temperature rise of a plasma grid for optimum negative ion production. To suppress arcing, a cathode filament shape was modified. The plasma grid was modified to have a large heat capacitance in order to suppress temperature rise for 60 s operation at high discharge power required for 1 MeV operation. Another issue is to optimize beam optics more precisely. Fine tuning of the 1st acceleration stage was carried to improve beam optics for high current density beam. With these modifications, high power density beam acceleration of 0.97 MeV, 190 A/m² has been achieved for 60 s. This is the first long pulse acceleration of ITER class high power density beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

R&D of high power density negative ion beam acceleration has been carried out at MeV test facility in JAEA to realize ITER neutral beam accelerator. The main target is H- ion beam acceleration up to 1 MeV with 200 A/m² for 60 s whose pulse length is the present facility limit. For long pulse acceleration at high power density, new extraction grid (EXG) has been developed with high cooling capability, which electron suppression magnet is placed under cooling channel similar to ITER. In addition, aperture size of electron suppression grid (ESG) is enlarged from 14 mm to 16 mm to reduce direct interception on the ESG and emission of secondary electron which leads to high heat load on the upstream acceleration grid. By enlarging ESG aperture, beam current increased 10% at high current beam and total acceleration grid heat load reduced from 13% to 10% of input power at long pulse beam. In addition, heat load by back stream positive ion into the EXG is measured for the first time and is estimated as 0.3% of beam power, while heat load by back stream ion into the source chamber is estimated as 3.5 ~ 4.0% of beam power. Beam acceleration up to 60 s which is the facility limit, has achieved at 683 keV, 100 A/m² of negative ion beam, whose energy density increases two orders of magnitude since 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In large negative ion sources of the neutral beam injector (NBI) for large fusion devices, such as ITER and JT-60SA, one of issues is that negative ion beam might be partially intercepted at acceleration grids due to a spatial non-uniformity of negative ion production on large extraction area. Previous experiments have shown that fast electrons emitted from filament cathodes are transported in a longitudinal direction by B × grad B drift and the spatial distribution of electron temperature (Te) is strongly related with the non-uniformity of negative ion production. In this study, a three-dimensional electron transport analysis code including detailed collision processes has been developed to clarify a physical mechanism of non-uniform Te distribution. Electron density and temperature in the analysis agree well with measurements by Langmuir probe in the JAEA 10A ion source. Then, this study has clarified that the non-uniformity of Te distribution is mainly caused by the following reasons; i) fast electrons drifted in the longitudinal direction survive near the end wall with high energy up to E = 25 - 60 eV and ii) they produce thermal electrons by collision with plasma particles there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acceleration of a 500 keV beam up to 2.8 A has been achieved on a JT-60U negative ion source with a three-stage accelerator by overcoming low voltage holding which is one of the critical issues for realization of the JT-60SA ion source. In order to improve the voltage holding, preliminary voltage holding tests with small-size grids with uniform and locally intense electric fields were carried out, and suggested that the voltage holding was degraded by both the size and local electric field effects. Therefore, the local electric field was reduced by tuning gap lengths between the large size grids and grid support structures of the accelerator. Moreover, a beam radiation shield which limited extension of the minimum gap length was also optimized so as to reduce the local electric field while maintaining the shielding effect. These modifications were based on the experiment results, and significantly increased the voltage holding from <150 kV/stage for the original configuration to 200 kV/stage. These techniques for improvement of voltage holding should also be applicable to other large ion sources accelerators such as those for ITER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voltage holding of -1 MV is an essential issue in development of a multi-aperture multi-grid (MAMuG) negative ion accelerator, of which target is to accelerate 200 A/m2 H- ion beam up to the energy of 1 MeV for several tens seconds. Review of voltage holding results ever obtained with various geometries of the accelerators showed that the voltage holding capability was about a half of designed value based on the experiment obtained from ideal small electrode. This is considered due to local electric field concentration in the accelerators, such as edge and steps between multi-aperture grids and its support structures. Based on the detailed investigation with electric field analysis, accelerator was modified to reduce the electric field concentration by reshaping the support structures and expanding the gap length between the grid supports. After the modifications, the accelerator succeeded in sustaining -1 MV for more than one hour in vacuum. Improvement of the voltage holding characteristics progressed the energy and current accelerated by the MeV accelerator. Up to 2010, beam parameters achieved by the MAMuG accelerator were increased to 879 keV, 0.36 A (157 A/m2) at perveance matched condition and 937 keV, 0.33 A (144 A/m2) slightly under perveance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of the neutral beam (NB) systems on JT-60SA, where 30-34 MW D0 beams are required to be injected for 100 s. A 30 s operation of the NB injectors suggests that existing beamline components and positive ion sources on JT-60U can be reused without the modifications on JT-60 SA. The JT-60 negative ion source was modified to improve the voltage holding capability, which leads to a successful acceleration of 2.8 A H- ion beam up to 500 keV of the rated acceleration energy for JT-60SA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the recent activities at JAEA for the development of 1 MeV H- ion accelerator toward the ITER NBI. For the development of MAMuG accelerator, a 320 mA H- ion beam was successfully accelerated as the highest record in the world at the MeV class energy (796 keV). This was achieved by protecting the H- ion source from the high heat load by the backstream positive ions, which was produced during the high current H- ion acceleration. The SINGAP accelerator was tested at JAEA to compare the performance of the SINGAP and the MAMuG. This paper also reports the results of the SINGAP test and the comparison between the SINGAP and the MAMuG is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]