Development of a non-intercepting weak beam current measurement electronics for Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility in Lanzhou

Non-destructive measurements of low-intensity charged particle beams are particularly challenging for beam diagnostics. At the Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL), beams with weak currents below 1 µA are often provided for experiments. The detection of such low beam current is below the threshold of typical standard beam current transformers. Therefore, a low-intensity monitoring system is developed by using a sensitive capacitive pick-up (PU) and low-noise electronics. This device measures beam currents by digitally analyzing the amplitude of the PU signals using a homodyne detection scheme. During lab tests, the amplitude nonlinearity is 0.5% in the operational range of 1 nA–45 µA and the amplitude resolution is 0.94 nA. At present, four measurement systems for low beam currents are installed at HIRFL for the monitoring of standard operating conditions with low beam currents below 1 µA. After an absolute calibration with a Faraday cup, it can be used for accurate beam intensity measurement with a current resolution of about 1 nA.