Intense pulsed heavy ion beam technology

Development of intense pulsed heavy ion beam accelerator technology is described for the application of materials processing. Gas puff plasma gun and vacuum arc discharge plasma gun were developed as an active ion source for magnetically insulated pulsed ion diode. Source plasma of nitrogen and aluminum were successfully produced with the gas puff plasma gun and the vacuum arc plasma gun, respectively. The ion diode was successfully operated with gas puff plasma gun at diode voltage 190 kV, diode current 2.2 kA and nitrogen ion beam of ion current density 27 A/cm2 was obtained. The ion composition was evaluated by a Thomson parabola spectrometer and the purity of the nitrogen ion beam was estimated to be 86%. The diode also operated with aluminum ion source of vacuum arc plasma gun. The ion diode was operated at 200 kV, 12 kA, and aluminum ion beam of current density 230 A/cm2 was obtained. The beam consists of aluminum ions (Al(1-3)+) of energy 60-400 keV, and protons (90 - 130 keV), and the purity was estimated to be 89 %. The development of the bipolar pulse accelerator (BPA) was reported. A double coaxial type bipolar pulse generator was developed as the power supply of the BPA. The generator was tested with dummy load of 7.5 ohm, bipolar pulses of-138 kV, 72 ns (1st pulse) and +130 kV, 70 ns (2nd pulse) were succesively generated. By applying the bipolar pulse to the drift tube of the BPA, nitrogen ion beam of 2 A/cm2 was observed in the cathode, which suggests the bipolar pulse acceleration. © 2010 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.