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The long-pulse acceleration of the high-power positive ion beam has been demonstrated with the JT-60 positive ion source in the joint experiment among Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) under the collaboration program for the development of plasma heating and current drive systems. In this joint experiment, the increase of the heat load and the breakdowns induced by the degradation of the beam optics due to the gas accumulation was one of the critical issues for the long-pulse acceleration. As a result of development of the long-pulse operation techniques of the ion source and facilities of the neutral beam test stand in KAERI, 2 MW 100 s beam has been achieved for the first time. The achieved beam performance satisfies the JT-60SA requirement which is designed to be a 1.94 MW ion beam power from an ion source corresponding to total neutral beam power of 20 MW with 24 ion sources. Therefore, it was found that the JT-60 positive ion sources were applicable in the JT-60SA neutral beam injectors. Moreover, because this ion source is planned to be a backup ion source for KSTAR, the operational region and characteristic has been clarified to apply to the KSTAR neutral beam injector.

In order to improve the spatial uniformity of the negative ion beam and to produce high current negative ion beams in a large negative ion source, a magnetic field configuration is modified from an original transverse filter to a tent-shaped filter, in combination with reducing the magnetic field strength in the JT-60 negative ion source. As a result, the beam uniformity is improved from 68% to 83% over an area of the whole extraction area of 450 × 1100 mm 2 . The improvement of the beam uniformity leads to the production of 32 A H − ion beams with the whole extraction area. The obtained beam current fulfills the requirement for JT-60SA.

The neutral beam injection (NBI) system was designed to provide plasma heating and current drive for high performance and long pulse operation of the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device using two co-current beam injection systems. Each neutral beam injection system was designed to inject three beams using three ion sources and each ion source has been designed to deliver more than 2.0 MW of deuterium neutral beam power for the 100-keV beam energy. Consequently, the final goal of the KSTAR NBI system aims to inject more than 12 MW of deuterium beam power with the two NBI for the long pulse operation of the KSTAR. As an initial step toward the long pulse (∼300 s) KSTAR NBI system development, the first neutral beam injection system equipped with one ion source was constructed for the KSTAR 2010 campaign and successfully commissioned. During the KSTAR 2010 campaign, a MW-deuterium neutral beam was successfully injected to the KSTAR plasma with maximum beam energy of 90 keV and the L-H transition was observed with neutral beam heating. In recent 2011 campaign, the beam power of 1.5 MW is injected with the beam energy of 95 keV. With the beam injection, the ion and electron temperatures increased significantly, and increase of the toroidal rotation speed of the plasma was observed as well. This paper describes the design, construction, commissioning results of the first NBI system leading the successful heating experiments carried in the KSTAR 2010 and 2011 campaign and the trial of 300-s long pulse beam extraction.

Neutral beam (NB) injectors for JT-60 Super Advanced (JT-60SA) have been designed and developed. Twelve positive-ion-based and one negative-ion-based NB injectors are allocated to inject 30 MW D 0 beams in total for 100 s. Each of the positive-ion-based NB injector is designed to inject 1.7 MW for 100 s at 85 keV. A part of the power supplies and magnetic shield utilized on JT-60U are upgraded and reused on JT-60SA. To realize the negative-ion-based NB injector for JT-60SA where the injection of 500 keV, 10 MW D 0 beams for 100 s is required, R&Ds of the negative ion source have been carried out. High-energy negative ion beams of 490–500 keV have been successfully produced at a beam current of 1–2.8 A through 20% of the total ion extraction area, by improving voltage holding capability of the ion source. This is the first demonstration of a high-current negative ion acceleration of >1 A to 500 keV. The design of the power supplies and the beamline is also in progress. The procurement of the acceleration power supply starts in 2010.

The JT-60 Super Advanced (JT-60SA) tokamak aims to perform the ITER support and to demonstrate steady-state high-beta plasma project with the collaboration between Japan and EU. To attain these objectives, the negative-ion-based NBI (N-NBI) system is required to inject 10 MW for 100 s at the beam energy of 500 keV. On JT-60U, the present N-NBI ion source has injected 3.2 MW for 21 s at 320 keV; however, three key issues should be solved for the JT-60SA N-NBI ion source. One is to improve the voltage holding capability of the large negative ion source, where the available acceleration voltage has been limited to less than ~400 kV due to breakdowns. The accelerator of the JT-60U ion source is composed of large three-stage grids and three fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) insulators. Recent R&D tests suggested that the FRP insulators were not the main factor to trigger the breakdowns at the early conditioning stage. The accelerator with a large area of grids and their supporting structure may need a high margin in the design of electric field and a long time for conditioning. The second issue is to reduce the power loading of the acceleration grids. It was found that some beamlets were strongly deflected due to beamlet-beamlet interaction and strike on the grounded grid in the accelerator. Moreover, the electrons generated in the accelerator caused the grid loading and the overheating of the beamline components. The acceleration grids for JT-60SA are to be designed by taking account of the beamlet-beamlet interaction and the applied magnetic field in 3-D simulation. Third is to maintain the D production for 100 s. Although a constant D- beam power was confirmed on JT-60U for 21 s, an active cooling system is required to keep the temperature of the plasma grid (PG) under optimum condition during 100-s operation. A simple cooling structure is proposed for the active cooled PG, where a key is the temperature gradient on the PG for uniform D- production. In the present schedule, design work, reflecting the latest R&D progress, will continue until ~2011. The modified N-NBI ion source will start on JT-60SA in 2015.

Modification of JT-60U to a superconducting device (so called JT-60SA) has been planned to contribute to ITER and DEMO. The NBI system is required to inject D 0 beams of 34 MW for 100 s. The upgraded NBI system for JT-60SA consists of 12 positive-ion-based NBI (P-NBI) units and one negative-ion-based NBI (N-NBI) unit. The injection powers of each P-NBI and N-NBI units are 2 MW at 85 keV and 10 MW at 500 keV, respectively. On JT-60U, the long pulse operations of 30 s at 2 MW and 20 s at 3.2 MW have been achieved on the P-NBI and N-NBI units, respectively. Both units have demonstrated no injection power degradation for long pulse operation. It has been also found that the thermal time constants of the main key components with active cooling, such as the ion source of the present NBI system, are less than ∼20 s. Therefore, the pulse extension up to 100 s is expected to need some modifications mainly the power supply system. In addition, the voltage-holding capability of the negative ion source is required to be improved. The detailed technical design of the NBI system for JT-60SA is presented.

Voltage holding capability in a 500 keV electrostatic accelerator with large FRP insulators was examined without the beam acceleration. When high voltage was applied, the light with a broad peak at a wavelength of 420 nm was mostly emitted inside the accelerator even though breakdown did not occur. The voltage holding capability has a strong correlation with the light intensity. Stable voltage holding was realized under the conditions in which light emission was well suppressed.

The 500 keV negative-ion based neutral beam injector for JT-60U started operations in 1996. The availability of the negative ion based neutral beam injection system has been improved gradually by modifying the ion source and optimizing its operation parameters. Recently, the extension of the pulse duration up to 30 s has been intended to study quasi-steady state plasma on JT-60U. The most serious issue is to reduce the heat load on the grids for long pulse operation. Two modifications have been proposed to reduce the heat load. One is to suppress the spread of beamlet-bundle which may be caused by beamlet–beamlet interaction in the multi-aperture grid due to the space charge force. Indeed, the investigation of the beam deflection, which was measured by the infrared camera on the target plate set 3.5 m away from the grid, indicates that the spread of beamlet-bundle is in proportion to the current density. Field-shaping plates were attached on the extraction grid to modify the local electric field. The plate thickness was optimized to steer the beamlet deflection. The other is to reduce the stripping loss, where the electron of the negative ion beam is stripped and accelerated in the accelerator and then collides with the grids. The ion source was modified to reduce the pressure in the accelerator column to suppress the beam-ion stripping loss. To date, long pulse injection of 19 s of 1.5–1.6 MW at a high energy beam of 360 keV, 9–10 A for D− has been obtained by one ion source with these modifications.

In the negative ion based neutral beam injector (N-NBI) for JT-60U, an extension of the pulse duration up to 30 s has been intended to study quasi-steady state plasmas, where the NBI pulse duration is significantly longer than the plasma current diffusion time. Achieving long pulse injection requires a reduction of the heat load on the grids of the ion source. The ion source was modified to reduce the pressure within the grid structure by increasing the vacuum conductance of the acceleration grids. The acceleration efficiency was improved from 0.74 to 0.79. The heat load of the grounded grid, which was the main heat load of the acceleration grids, decreased from 9.2 to 7.0% at a constant arc chamber pressure of 0.3 Pa. These improvements seemed to be caused by the reduction of beam ion stripping loss. Up to now, a long pulse injection of 17 s at the power of 1.6 MW with beam energy of 366 keV was obtained by using one ion source. The temperature rise of the cooling water from the grounded grid saturated at less than 35 °C during operation, so the heat load of the grid is significantly reduced for steady state operation at this power level.

In the neutral beam injection (NBI) system, an extension of the pulse duration up to 30 sec has been intended to study quasi-steady state plasma on JT-60U. The four positive-ion based (P-NBI) units, which tangentially inject neutral beam to plasma, were mainly modified on the electric power supplies and the beam limiters to extend the pulse duration up to 30 sec with 2 MW at 80 keV per each. The seven P-NBI units, each of which perpendicularly injects for 10 sec, were conducted to operate in series for the total pulse duration of 30 sec. The ion source of the negative-ion based (N-NBI) unit, whose target beam energy is 500 keV for 10 sec, was also modified to reduce the heat load of the grid for long pulse operation. The reduction of the re-ionization of the neutral beam in the beam drift duct was a key to achieve a long pulse injection. It was found that the pressure rise in the beam drift duct, which gives the re-ionization rate, depended on the temperature of the re-ionization plates during NBI injection. Up to now, it was attained successfully that the pulse duration of the tangential P-NBI unit was extended up tomore » 30 sec. 310 MJ of the total integrated injection energy into JT-60U plasma was achieved, including the negative-ion based NBI operation for 17 sec at 366 keV.« less

The negative-ion based neutral beam injection system developed by JAERI for JT-60U has been intended to generate a 500 keV and 10 MW beam for 10 seconds with two ion sources. Technical efforts to d...

The injection performance of the negative-ion based NBI (N-NBI) system for JT-60U has been improved by correcting beamlet deflection and improving spatial uniformity of negative ion production. Beamlet deflection at the peripheral region of the grid segment due to the distorted electric field at the bottom of the extractor has been observed. This was corrected by modifying the surface geometry at the extractor to form a flat electric field. Moreover, beamlet deflection due to beamlet–beamlet repulsion caused by space charge was also compensated for by extruding the edge of the bottom extractor. This resulted in a reduction of the heat loading on the NBI port limiter. As a result of the improvement above, continuous injection of a 2.6 MW H0 beam at 355 keV has been achieved for 10 s. Thus, long pulse injection up to the nominal pulse duration of JT-60U was demonstrated. This has opened up the prospect of long pulse operation of the negative-ion based NBI system for a steady-state tokamak reactor. So far, a maximum injection power of 5.8 MW at 400 keV, with a deuterium beam, and 6.2 MW at 381 keV, with a hydrogen beam, have been achieved in the JT-60U N-NBI. Uniformity of negative ion production was improved by tuning the filament emission current so as to direct more arc power into the region where less negative ion current was extracted.

The 500-keV negative-ion based neutral beam injector for JT-60U started operation in 1996. The beam power has been increased gradually through optimizing operation parameters of the ion sources and conquering many troubles in the ion source and power supplies caused by a high voltage break-down in the accelerator. However, some issues remain to be solved concerning the ion source for increasing further the beam power and the beam energy. The most serious issue of them is non-uniformity of source plasma in the arc chamber. Various countermeasures have been implemented to improve the non-uniformity. Some of those countermeasures have been found to be partially effective in reducing the non-uniformity of the source plasma, and as the result the ion source, so far, has accelerated negative-ion beams of 17.4A at 403keV with deuterium and 20A at 360keV with hydrogen against the goal of 22A at 500keV. The neutral beam injection power into the plasma has reached 5.8MW at 400keV with deuterium. Further efforts to ...

The positive-ion based neutral beam injection (NBI) system for JT-60, which consists of 14 beamline units and has a beam energy of 70 to 100 keV, started operation in 1986 with hydrogen beams and injected a neutral beam power of 27 MW at 75 keV into the JT-60 plasma. In 1991, the NBI system was modified to be able to handle deuterium beams as part of the JT-60 upgrade modification. After executing some research and developments, deuterium beams of 40 MW at 95 keV were injected in 1996. As a result, NBI has contributed to the achievement of the highest performance plasmas, a DT-equivalent fusion power gain of 1.25 and a fusion triple product of 1.55 x 10{sup 21} keVs/m{sup 3}, in the world on JT-60U.

The 500 keV negative-ion based neutral beam injector for JT-60U has been operated since 1996 and has injected so far a neutral beam power of 5.2 MW at 350 keV for 0.7 s. In order to further increase the beam power and extend the beam pulse duration time, a few issues concerning the negative ion source have to be solved. The most serious issue of them is non-uniformity of source plasma in the arc chamber. Two out of some countermeasures for improving the non-uniformity have been tried. The first is changing the spatial distribution of the arc discharge through regulating arc current resistors which connect in series to each of eight filament groups. The second is masking both ends of the plasma grid with thin molybdenum plates to block beam extraction at the edges. Owing to these countermeasures, the acceleration efficiency of the deuterium negative ion beams in the accelerator has improved by more than 30% from 0.55 to 0.74.

Development for enhancing the beam characteristics in the N-NBI system for JT-60U has been continued since 1996. In order to increase beam power and duration time, a few countermeasures for improvement of source plasma non-uniformity have been tried. The first is changing arc current limiting resistors for changing arc current distribution, the second is regulating filament temperature for altering arc discharge mode, the third is optimizing a magnetic barrier in arc chamber, and the fourth is blocking the beam acceleration at a strongly non-uniform source plasma area by masking both upper and lower edge of plasma grid. All of these countermeasures have been confirmed to be effective.

The positive-ion based NB1 system for JT-60 began operation in 1986 with hydrogen beam, and had injected the neutral beam power of 27 MW at 75 keV. The beam species has been changed to deuterium through changing the ion sources and beam-line components in 1991. The NBI has injected a deuterium beam of 40 MW at 96 keV in 1996. In 2000, the computer control system for the beam operation has been changed from a mini-computer to a workstation system in order to match a great variety of beam injection parameters, and the operation capability has greatly improved.

In JT-60U, a high-energy neutral beam injection (NBI) program using negative-ion based NBI (N-NBI) for non-inductive current drive and core plasma heating studies in high-density plasma has progressed. The target performance of the N-NBI is a neutral beam injection power of 10 MW for 10 s at 500 keV. A neutral beam power of 5.2 MW at 350 keV with deuterium has already been injected into JT-60U plasma. The beam divergence and power loading onto the beamline components are two important items to evaluate beam performance. The beam divergence, estimated roughly from heat loads at the beam drift duct in beam injection experiments into JT-60U plasma, was around 4 mrad for the horizontal direction and 6 mrad for the vertical direction, which were close to the design values of 5 mrad. The power loading on beamline components were reasonable as compared with the design value.

The negative ion based neutral beam injection system for JT-60 has operated since 1996 injecting neutral beam into JT-60 plasmas. A power flow measurement in the beam line and ion source with a water calorimeter had shown that 40%–50% of accelerated beam particles were intercepted on the two accelerator grids and the grounded grid at an ion source gas pressure of 0.2–0.3 Pa. Much of the beam loss was not caused by stripping loss of the negative ions, but rather by direct impingement of the negative ions onto the grids. After reducing the acceleration area by masking the edge area (about 13% of the extraction area) of the accelerator grid so as to minimize the edge effect of magnetic field in the arc chamber, the loss in the accelerator decreased by roughly 25%. In comparing a deuterium beam with a hydrogen beam, the neutral beam power with deuterium is lower by 30% than that of hydrogen at the same arc power, although the heat load onto the grounded grid does not change so much. The power deposition ratio...

Construction of the 500 keV negative-ion-based NBI system (N-NBI) with its maximum capability of 10 MW and 10 s for NB current drive and plasma core heating in high-density plasmas in JT-60 was completed in March 1996. The neutral beam injection into JT-60 with N-NBI has been performed since then. One of the key issues in the injection was how to control the bending magnetic field for residual ion beams. In N-NBI for JT-60, a stray magnetic field from the tokamak was actively used for bending of the residual ion beams. Combination of the stray magnetic field from JT-60 and the magnetic field of the deflecting coils was controlled sufficiently to successfully deposit residual ion beams at a constant point on the ion dump surface. The deposited positive and negative beam profiles on the ion dump were measured with an array of thermocouples brazed on the dump surface. This report describes the performance test of bending the residual ion beams and the measurement of the heat load on the ion dump for JT-60 N-NBI experiments.

A beam injection experiment with the negative-ion based NBI system (N-NBI) started in March 1996 on JT-60U. After achieving the first neutral beam injection of 180 keV, ∼0.1 MW for 0.4 s into the JT-60U plasmas, the operation parameters of the ion source and power supply had been optimized for increasing the beam energy and beam current. In September 1996, a deuterium neutral beam of 2.5 MW at 350 keV was injected into JT-60U using two ion sources. In the operation with hydrogen at the beginning of 1997, a negative ion beam current of 18.4 A at 350 keV has been obtained, and a neutral beam of 3.2 MW at 350 keV for 1 s has been injected into the plasma with one ion source. A neutralization efficiency of negative ion beam has been confirmed to be about 60% at the beam energies of 250–385 keV as predicted theoretically.

Fusion performance of reversed shear discharges with an {ital L}-mode edge has been significantly improved in a thermonuclear dominant regime with up to 2.8 MA of plasma current in the JT-60U tokamak. The core plasma energy is efficiently confined due to the existence of persistent internal transport barriers formed for both ions and electrons at a large minor radius of r/a{approximately}0.7 near the boundary of the reversed shear region. In an assumed deuterium-tritium fuel, the peak fusion amplification factor defined for transient conditions involving the dW/dt term would be in excess of unity. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}

A negative-ion-based neutral beam injector (N-NBI) has been constructed for JT-60U. The N-NBI is designed to inject 500 keV, 10 MW neutral beams using two ion sources, each producing a 500 keV, 22 A D- ion beam. In the preliminary experiment using one ion source, a D- ion beam of 13.5 A has been successfully accelerated with an energy of 400 keV (5.4 MW) for 0.12 s at an operating pressure of 0.22 Pa. This is the highest D- beam current and power in the world. Co-extracted electron current was effectively suppressed to the ratio of Ie/I D - < 1. The highest energy beam of 460 keV, 2.4 A, 0.44 s has also been obtained. To realize 1 MeV class NBI system for ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), demonstration of ampere class negative ion beam acceleration up to I MeV is an important mile stone. To achieve the mile stone, a prototype accelerator and a I MV, I A test facility called MeV Test Facility (MTF) were constructed. Up to now, an H- ion beam was accelerated up to the energy of 805 keV with an acceleration drain current of 150 mA for 1 s in a five stage electrostatic multi-aperture accelerator.

On the basis of recent progress in the research and development of a high current and high energy negative-ion source, the construction of a 500 keV negative-ion based neutral beam injection (NBI) system for JT-60U has begun to demonstrate a mega-amp level NB current drive at high plasma density and to study high energy beam heating in reactor-grade plasmas. The specification of the NBI system is as follows: a beam energy of 500 keV, an injection power of 10 MW, a beam duration time of 10 s, beam species of deuterium or hydrogen. The neutral beam of 10 MW is injected in a tangential codirection with a single beamline that has two negative ion sources. The construction of the negative-ion based NBI system will be completed in 1996, and NB current drive and plasma core heating experiments will start immediately in JT-60U.

The negative ion based neutral beam injector heating system for JT-60U has contributed to core plasma heating and noninductive current drive experiments on JT-60U. For increasing further the beam power and beam pulse duration, the serious issue is improvement of source plasma nonuniformity in the ion source. Various countermeasures have been devised to solve the nonuniformity. The first is to adjust the spatial distribution of the arc discharge through regulating the arc current limiting resistors to be connected in series to each of the filament groups. The second is to change the arc discharge mode through controlling the filament temperature. These measures have been found to be very effective.

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.

The negative ion source developed at JAERI for the N-NBI was intended to accelerate a 500 keV, 22 A D− beam for 10 s. Two of these ion sources are mounted in the beamline. It has been found that the spatial uniformity of the source plasma is not as good as expected in the design phase of the negative ion sources for JT-60U. The source plasma uniformity has been estimated through measuring spatial distributions of the arc current flowing into each filament group and also the ion saturation current with Langmuir probes placed at ten positions around the extraction area of the plasma grid. We then altered the relative values of the arc current-limiting resistors to the eight filament groups in each source to balance the arc. As a result of the optimization of the arc resistors, the nonuniformity of the source plasma has been reduced.

The J1-60 neutral beam system has been successfully operated for 4 years under a wide range of operation conditions: beam energy of 30-75 keV, beam pulse up to 6 s, injection power up to 26 MW with hydrogen beams. The maximum injection power of 26 MW was obtained at 73 keV with a two-stage accelerator. In a lower energy beam injection with a single-stage accelerator, the beam power at 38 keV reached 18 MW. The system could routinely inject a nominal power of 20 MW with high reliability. The beam energy could be changed during a beam pulse, e.g. from 40 keV to 70 keV for 1.5 s. Helium beams were injected with one of the beamlines for a simulation experiment of helium ash, and the injected power was 0.4 MW at 31 keV. The helium beams could deposit in the vicinity of the plasma center column. Helium gas in the beamline was evacuated by SF6 gas condensed cryo-sorption pumps whose pumping speed was about 800 m3/s.

The first long pulse production of high power D(-) ion beams has been demonstrated in the JT-60 U negative ion sources, each of which was designed to produce 22 A, 500 keV D(-) ion beams. Voltage holding capability and the grid power loading were examined for long pulse production of high power D(-) ion beams. From the correlation between voltage holding and the light intensity of cathodoluminescence from the Fiber Reinforced Plastic insulators, the acceleration voltage for stable voltage holding capability was found to be less than 320-340 kV where the light was sufficiently suppressed. By tuning the extraction voltage, the grid power loadings in the ion sources were decreased to the allowable levels for long pulse injection without a significant reduction of the beam power. After tuning the acceleration and extraction voltages, D(-) ion beams of 12.5 and 9.8 A were produced at 340 keV with cesium seeding at a rate of approximately 14 microg/s into the ion sources. The pulse duration of these D(-) ion beams was extended step by step, and then was successfully extended up to 18 s without degradation of the negative ion production. The D(-) ion beams were neutralized to yield 3.6 MW D(0) beams by a gas cell, and then injected into the JT-60 U plasma. Further, a slight reduction of D(-) ion beam power allowed the longer injection duration of 21 s at a D(0) beam power of 3.2 MW. The success in the long pulse production of a high power D(-) ion beam shows that negative ion beams can be produced during a few tens of seconds without degradations of negative ion production and the voltage holding in a large Cs-seeded negative ion source.

Recent lower hybrid current drive (LHCD), and heating (LHH) experiments on JT-60 are reported. The current drive product of neRpIRF approximately 12.5*1019 m-2 MA was achieved at the LH power of approximately 4.5 MW, and the CD efficiency, the energy confinement, the global power balance and the heat load on divertor plates were investigated in high power LHCD plasmas. Nearly steady state H-mode discharges were found during LHCD with two different frequency injections. Sawtooth suppression in NB heated plasmas by LHCD have shown an improvement in confinement near the plasma center. Parametric instabilities in LH heating experiments were significantly reduced by increasing the plasma current, and the stored energy increased linearly with heating power of up to approximately 9 MW at ne approximately 7*1019 m-3 and Ip=2.75 MA. Parametric instabilities near the plasma edge in the ion heating regime were also reduced in peaked density plasmas produced by pellet injection and LH waves increased the central plasma pressure at ne(0) > 1.4*1020 m-3.

Significant progress in the extension of pulse durations of powerful negative ion beams has been made to realize the neutral beam injectors for JT-60SA and ITER. In order to overcome common issues of the long-pulse production/acceleration of negative ion beams in JT-60SA and ITER, new technologies have been developed in the JT-60SA ion source and the MeV accelerator in Japan Atomic Energy Agency.As for the long-pulse production of high-current negative ions for the JT-60SA ion source, the pulse durations have been successfully increased from 30 s at 13 A on JT-60U to 100 s at 15 A by modifying the JT-60SA ion source, which satisfies the required pulse duration of 100 s and 70% of the rated beam current for JT-60SA. This progress was based on the R&D efforts for the temperature control of the plasma grid and uniform negative ion productions with the modified tent-shaped filter field configuration. Moreover, each parameter of the required beam energy, current and pulse has been achieved individually by these R&D efforts. The developed techniques are useful to design the ITER ion source because the sustainment of the caesium coverage in the large extraction area is one of the common issues between JT-60SA and ITER.As for the long-pulse acceleration of high power density beams in the MeV accelerator for ITER, the pulse duration of MeV-class negative ion beams has been extended by more than 2 orders of magnitude by modifying the extraction grid with a high cooling capability and a high transmission of negative ions. A long-pulse acceleration of 60 s has been achieved at 70 MW m−2 (683 keV, 100 A m−2) which has reached the power density of JT-60SA level of 65 MW m−2. No degradations of the voltage holding capability of the acceleration voltage and the beam optics due to the distortion of the acceleration grids have been observed in this power density level.These results are the longest pulse durations of high-current and high-power-density negative ion beams in the world.

The breakdown phenomena in the 500 keV electrostatic accelerator with large FRP insulators for the fusion application was examined without the beam acceleration. When the high voltage was applied, the light emission with a broad peak at a wavelength of 420 nm was mostly emitted inside the accelerator even though breakdown did not occur. It was found that the voltage holding capability has a strong correlation with the light intensity, and that stable voltage holding was realized under the conditions in which light emission was well suppressed.

The pulse duration of the negative ion based NBI system has been extended from 10 s to 25 s to study long pulse plasmas on JT-60U. A feedback control technique has been demonstrated to keep the arc power constant by controlling the filament voltage for long pulse operation. Thus it was clearly observed that the negative ion beam current increased with the temperature of the plasma grid at constant arc power. A tapered filament is employed to improve its durability for the next operational campaign. Moreover, a high voltage holding test indicates that the reduction in the outgassing from the FRP (fiberglass-reinforced plastic) insulator may be a key to suppress the breakdowns in the ion source

The first results of the performance test of the large negative ion source for a JT‐60U negative‐ion‐based neutral beam injector (N‐NBI) are presented. The ion source consists of a cesium seeded multicusp plasma generator, where negative ions are produced via volume and surface processes, a 110 cm×45 cm multiaperture extractor, and a three‐stage electrostatic accelerator. After negative ion production and voltage holding tests in test stands, the ion source was installed in the N‐NBI system and the full power test began. Up to now, the ion source has produced 400 keV, 5.9 A (2.4 MW) D− ion beams, the world highest D− current and beam power, with a pulse duration of 0.1 s.

In the negative ion based NBI for JT-60, the maximum injection power reached so far is 5.2 MW at 350 keV. However the beam power and pulse duration are limited mainly by a mismatched perveance of the accelerated beam due to the source plasma non-uniformity. The source plasma uniformity was investigated by measuring the arc current distribution and ion saturation current in the plasma generator. A large non-uniformity has been found at the bottom side along a longitudinal direction in the ion source. As countermeasures against the source plasma non-uniformity, the adjustment of resistors in series with are current circuit connected to each of eight filament groups and the masking both fringes of the plasma grid are effective.

The JT-60 JAERI (Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute) Tokamak-60 neutral beam injector (NBI) has been successfully operated for three years, delivering a neutral beam power of 20 MW at a beam energy of 75 keV. The helium-beam injection into JT-60 was performed to investigate exhaustion of fusion alpha particles from the plasma. The helium-ion beam current extracted from ion sources was 40-45 A at an energy of 31 keV. The injection power was about 0.4 MW. In the helium-beam operation, the helium gas in the beamline chamber was pumped out by a condensed SF/sub 6/ gas cryosorption pump. The JT-60 neutral beam injector will be modified to inject a 120-keV deuterium beam into the JT-60 upgrade, which will start to operate at the beginning of 1991. >

The construction of 500 keV NBI system using negative-ions has started for studying of mega-ampere level NB current drive and plasma core heating experiments with a high density reactor-like plasma In JT-60U. The specification of the NBI system is; a beam energy of 500 keV, an injection power of 10 MW, a beam duration time of 10 sec with a duty cycle of 1/60, a beam species of deuterium or hydrogen. The power of 10 MW is injected toward tangential/co-direction with one beamline that has two negative-ion sources. The construction of the NBI system will be completed in 1996.

The negative-ion based NBI for JT-60U has been making efforts to increase beam power and beam energy since the operation started in March 1996. The NBI system has already operated negative ion beams of 14.3 A at 380 keV with deuterium and 18.4 A at 350 keV with hydrogen. In the beam injection into JT-60U, a deuterium neutral beam power of 3.6 MW at 350 keV has been injected for 0.9 sec, and plasma reactions against the high energy beam injection with the N-NBI have been confirmed to be in agreement with a theoretical prediction.

A 500 keV negative-ion based NBI system is under construction for NB current drive and plasma core heating in high density plasmas in JT-60U. Part of the beamline and the high voltage power supply required for a verification test of an ion source have completed in March 1995. After having done a high potential test of the power supply, the negative-ion generation and acceleration tests have started in June 1995 aiming at deuterium beams of 500 keV, 22 A. In initial experiment, deuterium negative-ion beams of 410 keV, 6.1 A (2.5 MW) for 0.2 sec, so far, have been achieved. This is the world highest D/sup -/ current and negative ion beam power. The construction of the total system will be completed by the beginning of 1996, and the beam injection will start in March 1996.

A 500 keV negative ion source for JT-60U and a 1 MeV ion source for ITER are being developed at JAERI. A beam acceleration test of the JT-60U negative ion source that is designed to produce a 500 keV, 22 A D beam for 10 s, has started. The ion source consists of a cesium seeded volume negative ion generator and a three-stage multi-aperture accelerator. Up to now, a D ion beam of 410 keV, 6.1 A, 0.2 s, 2.5 MW was accelerated. This is the world record of deuterium negative ion beam current and negative ion beam power. On the other hand, to demonstrate negative ion acceleration up to an energy of 1 MeV for ITER, we constructed a five-stage electrostatic accelerator and a 1 MV/1A test facility called "MeV Test Facility (MTF)". The accelerator was conditioned up to a high voltage of 760 kV without beam. The H ion beam was successfully accelerated up to the energy of 700 keV with a drain current of 230 mA for 1 s.

Non-uniformity of the negative ion beams in the JT-60 negative ion source with the world-largest ion extraction area was improved by modifying the magnetic filter in the source from the plasma grid (PG) filter to a tent-shaped filter. The magnetic design via electron trajectory calculation showed that the tent-shaped filter was expected to suppress the localization of the primary electrons emitted from the filaments and created uniform plasma with positive ions and atoms of the parent particles for the negative ions. By modifying the magnetic filter to the tent-shaped filter, the uniformity defined as the deviation from the averaged beam intensity was reduced from 14% of the PG filter to ∼10% without a reduction of the negative ion production.

Neutral beam injection with the negative-ion based NBI system for JT-60U started in March 1996. The system is designed to deliver deuterium neutral beams of 10MW at 500keV for 10sec using one beamline with two large-size negative-ion sources. In a preliminary negative ion source test conducted in 1995 ahead of beam injection into JT-60U, a deuterium negative ion beam of 400keV, 13.5A, which is the highest negative ion beam power (5.4MW) in the world, was produced. The first deuterium neutral beam of 180keV, ˜0.1MW has been injected into JT-60U successfully in March 1996. The injection power has reached 2.5MW at 350keV as of the beginning of September 1996. The beam energy and power are now being increased further for the plasma heating and NB current drive experiments with high density plasmas in JT-60U.

In order to investigate the origin of the non-uniformity of the source plasmas in the JT-60 negative ion source, the distribution of H + ions and H 0 atoms, which were converted to H − ions on the cesium covered surface, were measured by Langmuir probes and emission spectroscopy. Both of H + ions and H 0 atoms at the top and bottom of the ion source were about twice higher and lower than those in the center region, respectively. In particular, they were highly localized near the side wall of the top of the ion source. The analyses of the primary electron trajectories showed that this non-uniformity was due to the B x grad B drift of primary electrons emitted from filaments. These results suggest that the non-uniformity of the negative ions results in a locally poor beam optics and significant direct interception of the H − ions on the acceleration grid. This is the reason why the negative ion beams are non-uniform in the JT-60 negative ion source. c

Beam extraction and acceleration test in the Negative Ion Based Neutral Beam Injector for JT‐60U has been started using one ion source that is designed to produce a 500 keV, 22 A D− ion beam. Deuterium negative ions are produced in a cesium‐seeded semi‐cylindrical plasma generator and accelerated by a multi‐aperture three‐stage electrostatic accelerator. In the preliminary experiment of beam acceleration, the D− ion beam of 13.5 A was successfully accelerated to 400 keV for a pulse duration of 0.12 s. The negative ion beam power was 5.4 MW. The operating gas pressure in the plasma generator was as low as 0.22 Pa. The highest energy beam of 460 keV, 2.4 A, 0.44 s was also obtained. The ratio of extracted electron current to extracted negative ion current is estimated Ie/ID−

A negative-ion-based neutral beam injector system for JT-60U is under construction. The system injects a neutral beam of 10 MW at 500 keV for 10 seconds using one beamline with two large negative ion sources. The total system efficiency of the NBI system is estimated to be 40%. The construction will be completed by the beginning of 1996, following which an NBI current drive and a plasma core heating experiments with a high density plasma will start.

Hydrogen negative ion beams of 507 keV, 1 A and 486 keV, 2.8 A have been successfully produced in the JT-60U negative ion source with a three-stage accelerator by overcoming a poor voltage holding of the accelerator with large-size grids of ∼2 m2. This is the first result of H− beam acceleration up to 500 keV at a high current of over 1 A. In order to improve the voltage holding capability, the breakdown voltages of the large-size grids and small-size electrodes with uniform and locally strong electric fields were examined by changing the gap length. It was found that the voltage holding of the large-size grids was below half of that of the small-size electrodes with a uniform electric field which was used in the design of the accelerator. This degradation was found to be caused by the local electric field concentrations in addition to the size. Based on the results of the voltage holding tests and beam optics calculations, the gap lengths of the large-size grids were tuned to have a capability to sustain 600 kV. As a result, the gap tuning realized stable voltage holding during beam accelerations without significant degradations of the beam optics and stripping loss. These results indicated that stable 500 keV beam accelerations required for JT-60SA are feasible and this gap tuning is also applicable for the design of ITER accelerator.