Compact Ion Beam System for Fusion Demonstration
Abstract
We demonstrate a compact ion beam device capable of accelerating H and D ions up to 75keV energy, on to a solid target, with sufficient beam current to study fusion reactions. The ion beam system uses a microwave driven plasma source to generate ions that are accelerated to high energy with a direct current (DC) acceleration structure. The plasma source is driven by pulsed microwaves from a solid-state radiofrequency (RF) amplifier, which is impedance matched to the plasma source chamber at the ISM band frequency (2.4-2.5GHz). The plasma chamber is held at high positive DC potential and is isolated from the impedance matching structure (at ground potential) by a dielectric-filled gap. To facilitate the use of high-energy-particle detectors near the target, the plasma chamber is biased to a high positive voltage, while the target remains grounded. A target loaded with deuterium is used to study D-D fusion and a BC or LaB target is used to study p-B fusion. Detectors include solid-state charged particle detector and a scintillation fast neutron detector. The complete ion beam system can fit on a laboratory table and is a useful tool for teaching undergraduate and graduate students about the physics of fusion.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2407.04197,
title = {Compact Ion Beam System for Fusion Demonstration},
author = {Allan Xi Chen and Nai-Wei Liu and Alexander Gunn and Zhe Su and Benjamin F. Sigal and Matthew Salazar and Nawar Abdalla and James Chen and Alfred Y. Wong and Qiong Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.04197},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
21 pages, 13 figures, accepted manuscript in Physics Open (ISSN: 2666-0326)