Deuterium ion beam focusing for the point neutron source development

Abstract

This work is a continuation of the studies on the point neutron source development. In the neutron source scheme proposed, neutron emission occurs in a relatively small region (less than 1 mm) as a result of the D–D fusion reaction initiated when the focused deuterium ion beam hits the deuterium-loaded target. The main goal of the project is to develop a simple and compact device that can be used in the high-quality fast neutron radiography. In the scheme proposed, the ion beam is extracted from the dense ECR discharge plasma that is confined in the simple magnetic mirror trap. After upgrading the extraction system and the magnetic lens, the deuterium ion beam with a total current in the focal plane of up to 150 mA was obtained, which considerably exceeds the current obtained previously. The numerical simulations of the beam magnetic focusing were performed using the IBSimu code and the results were compared to the experimental data.