Optimization of accelerated charged particle beam for ADS energy production

A comparative analysis and optimization of energy efficiency for proton and ion beams in ADS systems is performed via simulation using a GEANT4 code with account for energy consumption for different accelerator types. It is demonstrated that for light nuclei, beginning from ⁷Li, with energies above 1 GeV/nucleon, ion beams are considerably (several times) more efficient than the 1–3 GeV proton beam. The possibility of achieving energy deposition equivalent to 1 GeV protons in a quasi-infinite uranium target with higher efficiency (and twice as small accelerator size) in the case of acceleration of light ions is substantiated.     

Laser Accelerated, High Quality Ion Beams

Intense beams of protons and heavy ions have been observed in ultra-intense laser-solid interaction experiments. Thereby, a considerable fraction of the laser energy is transferred to collimated beams of energetic ions (e.g. up to 50 MeV protons; 100 MeV fluorine), which makes these beams highly interesting for various applications. Experimental results indicate very short pulse duration and an excellent beam quality, leading to beam intensities in the TW range. To characterize the beam quality and its dependence on laser parameters and target conditions, we performed experiments at several high-power laser systems. We found a strong dependence on the target rear surface conditions allowing to tailor the ion beam by an appropriate target design. We also succeeded in the generation of heavy ion beams by suppressing the proton amount at the target surface. We will present recent experimental results demonstrating a transverse beam emittance far superior to accelerator-based ion beams. Finally, we will discuss the prospect of laser-accelerated ion beams as new diagnostics in laser-solid interaction experiements. Special fields of interest are proton radiography, electric field imaging, and relativistic electron transport inside the target.     

Electron-impact ionization and dissociative ionization of sulfur in the gas phase

We describe the methods and the results of investigation of the yield of positive ions formed as a result of electron-impact ionization of sulfur. The ionization energy for the basic molecule and the energies corresponding to the emergence of fragment ions are obtained from the ionization efficiency curves. The dynamics of formation of molecular sulfur ions in the temperature range 320–700 K is investigated. The energy dependences of efficiency S _n of the ion formation for n = 1–6 are analyzed, and their appearance energies are determined. The total cross section of sulfur ionization by a monochromatic electron beam is also investigated. Using the linear approximation method, we marked out features on the ionization function curve, which correspond to the ionization and excitation energies for multiply charged ions. The total cross section of the formation of negative sulfur ions is measured in the energy range 0–9 eV.     

On the formation of the central plasma sheet by echo clusters of ion beams

Multiple energy dispersion structures of H⁺ ions that were observed at the passage of the INTERBALL-Auroral satellite through the plasma sheet at a geocentric distance of about 3R _E, where R _E is the radius of the Earth, on November 3, 1996, have been analyzed. The structure in the plasma sheet boundary layer, which has direct dispersion in energy and invariant latitude, in the range of 0.5–10.0 keV (velocity-dispersed ion structure) is an “autograph” of accelerated ion beams (primary beamlets) generated in the current sheet along the geomagnetic tail. The central plasma sheet contains five dispersion structures c1–c5 with the average energy ranging from 2.80 to 7.36 keV. The average energy of the structures increases with a decrease in the latitude. The event under consideration is a case of the regime of formation of the central plasma sheet by echo beamlets of the accelerated ion beam in the absence of a diffusion thermalized population of ions. This phenomenon is possibly explained by the fact that a magnetically quite period was observed three days before the passage of the satellite, when the regime of long-term diffusion of particles from the central plasma sheet occurred.     

Laser spectroscopy of trapped 7Be and 10Be at a prototype slow RI-beam facility of RIKEN

A next-generation slow radioactive nuclear ion beam facility (SLOWRI) which provides slow, high-purity and small emittance ion beams of all elements is being build as one of the principal facilities at the RIKEN RI-beam factory (RIBF). High energy radioactive ion beams from the projectile fragment separator BigRIPS are thermalized in a large gas catcher cell. The thermalized ions in the gas cell are guided and extracted to a vacuum environment by a combination of dc electric fields and inhomogeneous rf fields (rf carpet ion guide). From there the slow ion beam is delivered via a mass separator and a switchyard to various devices: such as an ion trap, a collinear fast beam apparatus, and a multi-reflection time of flight mass spectrometer. In the R&D works at the present RIKEN facility, an overall efficiency of 5% for a 100A MeV ⁸Li ion beam from the present projectile fragment separator RIPS was achieved and the dependence of the efficiency on the ion beam intensity was investigated. Recently our first spectroscopy experiment at the prototype SLOWI was performed on Be isotopes. Energetic ions of ¹⁰Be and ⁷Be from the RIPS were trapped and laser cooled in a linear rf trap and the specific mass shifts of these isotopes were measured for the first time.     

Laser-produced copper ion energy spectrum employing Thomson scattering technique

Investigations were performed on laser-assisted ion emission when a copper target was irradiated with a Nd:YAG laser (1.064 μm 10 mJ and 1.1 MW). Charge states present in the ion core emitted from plasma were determined employing Faraday cup arrangement using a four-channel 500 MHz Digital Storage Oscilloscope YOKOGAWA DL 1740. The Thomson parabola scattering (TPS) technique was used to measure the energy of ions emitted from plasma. Singly charged positive ions were found to be in excessive amount. For the energy analysis, the ion beam was collimated using a pinhole arrangement. The collimated beam was then made to pass through a uniform magnetic field of 0.4 T. A solid-state nuclear track detector PM-355 was used to register the ion tracks. The energy of ions, found to be in the range of 9–50 keV. The ion energy spectra d ² N/dEdΩ show a decreasing trend with increasing ion energy. The empirical relation dN/dE ∞ E ^?n fits well with the experimental data at higher values of energy, i.e., greater than 20 keV.     

Formation of silicon carbide and diamond nanoparticles in the surface layer of a silicon target during short-pulse carbon ion implantation

Synthesis of silicon carbide and diamond nanoparticles is studied during short-pulse implantation of carbon ions and protons into a silicon target. The experiments are carried out using a TEMP source of pulsed powerful ion beams based on a magnetically insulated diode with radial magnetic field B _r . The beam parameters are as follows: the ion energy is 300 keV, the pulse duration is 80 ns, the beam consists of carbon ions and protons, and the ion current density is 30 A/cm². Single-crystal silicon wafers serve as a target. SiC nanoparticles and nanodiamonds form in the surface layer of silicon subjected to more than 100 pulses. The average coherent domain sizes in the SiC particles and nanodiamonds are 12–16 and 8–9 nm, respectively.     

The nonlinear transformation of an ion beam in the plasma lens

The plasma lens can carry out not only sharp focusing of ions beam. At those stages at which the magnetic field is nonlinear, formation of other interesting configurations of beams is possible. Plasma lens provides formation of hollow beams of ions. Application of the several plasma lenses allow to get a conic and a cylindrical beams. The plasma lens can be used for obtaining a beams with homogeneous spatial distribution. Calculations and measurements were performed for a C⁺⁶ and Fe⁺²⁶ beams of 200?C300 MeV/a.u.m. energy. The obtained results and analysis are reported.     

Distribution uniformity of laser-accelerated proton beams

Compared with conventional accelerators,laser plasma accelerators can generate high energy ions at a greatly reduced scale,due to their TV/m acceleration gradient.A compact laser plasma accelerator(CLAPA) has been built at the Institute of Heavy Ion Physics at Peking University.It will be used for applied research like biological irradiation,astrophysics simulations,etc.A beamline system with multiple quadrupoles and an analyzing magnet for laser-accelerated ions is proposed here.Since laser-accelerated ion beams have broad energy spectra and large angular divergence,the parameters(beam waist position in the Y direction,beam line layout,drift distance,magnet angles etc.) of the beamline system are carefully designed and optimised to obtain a radially symmetric proton distribution at the irradiation platform.Requirements of energy selection and differences in focusing or defocusing in application systems greatly influence the evolution of proton distributions.With optimal parameters,radially symmetric proton distributions can be achieved and protons with different energy spread within ±5% have similar transverse areas at the experiment target.     

Generation of a fast-ion beam upon the interaction of a multiterawatt picosecond laser pulse with a solid target

The parameters of fast particles generated upon the interaction of 10¹⁹ W/cm² laser pulses with solid targets are studied. The spatial and energy parameters of fast ions are investigated. It is found that approximately 1–3% of the laser energy is transformed to the energy of mega-and submegaelectronvolt ions at laser pulse intensities ≥10¹⁸ W/cm². It is shown experimentally that an ion beam is directed perpendicular to the target surface. The analytic and numerical simulations agree with experimental results and predict the propagation of fast electrons in the mirror direction with respect to the incident laser beam and of ions perpendicular to the target. The theoretical calculations are compared with the experimental output and spectra of fast electrons and ions.     

Non-equilibrium plasma production by pulsed laser ablation of gold

A gold target has been irradiated with a Q-switched Nd:Yag laser having 1064?nm wavelength, 9?ns pulse width, 900?mJ maximum pulse energy and a maximum power density of the order of 10¹⁰?W/cm². The laser–target interaction produces a strong gold etching with production of a plasma in front of the target. The plasma contains neutrals and ions having a high charge state. Time-of-flight (TOF) measurements are presented for the analysis of the ion production and ion velocity. A cylindrical electrostatic deflection ion analyzer permits measurement of the yield of the emitted ions, their charge state and their ion energy distribution. Measurements indicate that the ion charge state reaches 6⁺ and 10⁺ at a laser fluence of 100?J/cm² and 160?J/cm², respectively. The maximum ion energy reaches about 2?keV and 8?keV at these low and high laser fluences, respectively. Experimental ion energy distributions are given as a function of the ion charge state. Obtained results indicate that electrical fields, produced in the plume, along the normal to the plane of the target surface, exist in the unstable plasma. The electrical fields induce ion acceleration away from the target with a final velocity dependent on the ion charge state. The ion velocity distributions follow a “shifted Maxwellian distribution”, which the authors have corrected for the Coulomb interactions occurring inside the plasma.     

相对传播的双脉冲激光与薄膜靶作用产生的强单色谐波

研究了相对传播的双脉冲激光与薄膜靶的作用,观察到很强的谐波产生.其物理图像是:圆偏振高对比度强激光脉冲作用于薄膜靶,由光压推动产生的高密度等离子体靶向前运动,同时由于电荷分离场的作用,使得离子束和电子束在纵向上都有好的聚束,从而产生以相对论速度向前运动的等离子体镜;反向入射一个探测光到已被加速的等离子体镜上,由多普勒频移产生强的单色N次谐波,探测光脉冲被"压缩"至原来的1/N.还讨论了激光和等离子体参数对等离子体镜的运动和谐波级次的影响,以及相对论运动等离子体镜的稳定性对谐波的影响.     

Performance of 300 s-beam extraction in the KSTAR neutral beam injector

The first neutral beam injector (NBI-1) has been developed for the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) tokamak. The first long pulse ion source (LPIS-1) has been installed in the NBI-1 for an auxiliary heating and current drive of KSTAR plasmas. The performance of 300 s ion beam extraction in the LPIS-1 was investigated on the KSTAR NBI-1 system, prior to the neutral beam injection for long pulse operation. The ion source consists of a magnetic bucket plasma generator with multi-pole cusp fields and a set of prototype tetrode accelerators with circular-type apertures. The inner volume of the plasma generator and accelerator column in the LPIS-1 is approximately 123 L. The nominal operation requirements for the ion source (IS) were a 100 kV/50 A deuterium beam and a 300 s pulse length. The extraction of ion beams was initiated by the formation of arc plasmas in the LPIS-1, called an arc-beam extraction method. A stable ion beam extraction of the LPIS-1 was achieved with 80 kV/27 A and a beam perveance of 1.19 microperv for a 300 s pulse length. Beam power deposition along the NBI-1 has been measured using water-flow calorimetry (WFC), and the sum of the deposited power on the ion source and beamline components was about 93% of the drained acceleration power (V_acc?I_acc). The beam power deposition was compared to the calculated results of the beam transport with re-ionization (BTR) code.     

Pulse regime in formation of fractal fibers

The pulse regime of vaporization of a bulk metal located in a buffer gas is analyzed as a method of generation of metal atoms under the action of a plasma torch or a laser beam. Subsequently these atoms are transformed into solid nanoclusters, fractal aggregates and then into fractal fibers if the growth process proceeds in an external electric field. We are guided by metals in which transitions between s and d-electrons of their atoms are possible, since these metals are used as catalysts and filters in interaction with gas flows. The resistance of metal fractal structures to a gas flow is evaluated that allows one to find optimal parameters of a fractal structure for gas flow propagation through it. The thermal regime of interaction between a plasma pulse or a laser beam and a metal surface is analyzed. It is shown that the basic energy from an external source is consumed on a bulk metal heating, and the efficiency of atom evaporation from the metal surface, that is the ratio of energy fluxes for vaporization and heating, is 10^–3–10^–4 for transient metals under consideration. A typical energy flux (~10⁶ W/cm²), a typical surface temperature (~3000 K), and a typical pulse duration (~1 μs) provide a sufficient amount of evaporated atoms to generate fractal fibers such that each molecule of a gas flow collides with the skeleton of fractal fibers many times.     

Generation of superthermal plasma flows in current sheets

The profiles of the He II 3203 Å and He II 4686 Å spectral lines of helium ions have been detected and analyzed. Using these data, the processes of acceleration and heating of a plasma in current sheets that are formed in magnetic configurations with X-type singular lines have been analyzed. The generation of plasma flows with energies of 400–1300 eV, which are much higher than the thermal energy of ions, has been revealed. The acceleration of the plasma induced by Ampere forces is likely spatially inhomogeneous, which should lead to shear plasma flows in a current sheet.     

On the evaluation of ignition threshold in proton-carbon hybrid ignitor beam proposal

We may improve plasma ignition quality in a conically guided proton fast ignition scheme by the application of an extra lower intensity, secondary carbon beam. According to the experimental measurements on the number of laser-accelerated ions, the temporal evolution of the hot spot electron, ion, and radiation temperatures was examined using three-temperature plasma model, in radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) mechanisms for a proton-Carbon beam configuration, E_avg ≈ 10 MeV/nucleon. The hot spot ignition was evaluated by the well-known stopping power models proposed independently by Li–Petrasso (LP) and Brown–Preston–Singleton (BPS). Based on our analytical results, with time, plasma temperature in the LP model surpasses the BPS model. From this point of view, to compensate this deficiency in the BPS method, we will show that the density ratio of 17% is required when the energy spread is 10%. The results were also validated by the DEIRA-4 code. Moreover, the electron-ion equilibrium will decrease up to 9.3 and 4.4% for the LP and BPS methods, respectively. It is demonstrated that the key features of a higher average ion energy as well as the narrow beam profile in the RPA regime may effectively ignite hot spot much better than in the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) counterpart. It is estimated that the proton-Carbon beam proposal can reduce ion beam energy to 8.42 kJ, approximately saving 15% of ignitor energy.     

VUV-heating of plasma layers and their use as ultrafast switches

We report on new possibilities to generate solid-density plasma at extreme energy density by intense VUV beams. Here we consider 100 fs pulses of 30 eV photons focused to 10¹⁶ and 10¹⁸ W/cm². The temperature evolution in 50 nm thick aluminum foils is discussed on the basis of simulations, performed with the one-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics code MULTI-fs. For 30 eV photons, the foil is shown to switch from transmission to reflection mode on a femto-second time-scale; this is due to the rapid change of the plasma frequency during laser heating which may turn an initially transparent Al-foil into an opaque one. The switching-time depends on the intensity of the laser pulse. Also layered heating structures inside the foil are discussed which occur due to reflection at the rear surface.     

Tungsten ions produced by infrared pulsed laser irradiation

Energetic ions have been obtained irradiating a tungsten target with a Q-switched Nd:Yag laser, 1064?nm wavelength, 9?ns pulse width, 900?mJ maximum pulse energy and power density of the order of 10¹⁰?W/cm². The laser-target interaction induces a strong metal etching with production of plasma in front of the target. The plasma contains neutrals and ions with high charge state. Time-of-flight measurements are presented for qualitative analysis of the ion production. A cylindrical electrostatic ion analyzer permits measuring of the yield of emitted ions, the charge state of detected ions and the ion energy distribution. Measurements indicate that, at a laser fluence of the order of 100?J/cm², the charge state may reach 9+ and the ion energy reaches about 5?keV. The ion energy distribution is given as a function of the charge state. Experimental results indicate that an electrical field is developed along the normal to the plane of the target surface, which accelerates the ions up to high velocity. The ion velocity distributions follow a “shifted Maxwellian distribution”, which the author has corrected for the Coulomb interactions occurring inside the plasma.     

Two-dimensional numerical research on effects of titanium target bombarded by TEMPⅡ accelerator

Two-dimensional numerical research has been carried out on the ablation effects of titanium target irradiated by intense pulsed ion beam (IPIB) generated by TEMP II accelerator. Temporal and spatial evolution of the ablation process of the target during a pulse time has been simulated. We have come to the conclusion that the melting and evaporating process begin from the surface and the target is ablated layer by layer when the target is irradiated by the IPIB. Meanwhile, we also obtained the result that the average ablation velocity in target central region is about 10\,m/s, which is far less than the ejection velocity of the plume plasma formed by irradiation. Different effects have been compared to the different ratio of the ions and different energy density of IPIB while the target is irradiated by pulsed beams.