BNL Neutral Beam Development Group. Progress report, FY 1983 and final report

Abstract

The BNL Neutral Beam Development Group has been active in the program for the development of high energy, high power neutral beam systems since 1973. These injectors are based on the production, acceleration and neutralization of negative hydrogen or deuterium ions and are supposed to be used for plasma heating and current drive in the next generation of fusion devices. Over the span of 10 years the group has studied plasma-surface type of negative hydrogen ion sources, transport and acceleration of negative ion beams and neutralization of negative ions in gases and plasmas. As the required source parameters (current, pulse length, efficiency) were changing over this period of time, the group developed several types of sources, resulting finally in the design of a steady state device operating with an excellent gas efficiency and having the possibility of scaling-up to the size necessary for a high power neutral beam system. The funding of this program was, however, terminated in FY 83 before the neutral beam performance of the source could be shown. This report will present a summary of the BNL effort over the past ten years, with most emphasis on achievements in FY 83, including the description of the 2 A steady state H/sup -/ or D/sup -/ ion source for use in a neutral beam line and of the plasma neutralizer capable to achieve neutralization efficiencies above 80%.