Steady state operation of an ampere-class hydrogen negative ion source

A cesium-seeded volume negative ion source producing H− ion beams of 800 mA has been operated continuously at a high current density of 20 mA/cm2. The ion source consists of a magnetically filtered multicusp plasma generator and a multiaperture extractor. The ion source has a frame-cooling-type plasma grid, which is continuously able to keep the temperature at optimum using radiation from filaments and arc discharge. The ion source produces about 150 mA of H− in operation without cesium (pure volume operation). The negative ion yield is enhanced by more than a factor of four by injecting 600 mg of cesium. It is important to keep the plasma grid surface temperature at about 300 °C, where the negative ion yield has the maximum. The plasma generator has six tungsten filament cathodes of 1.2 mm in diameter. To estimate a lifetime of the filaments, weight and diameter of the filaments were measured after continuous operation. It was found that evaporation is the dominant wearing-out process, and no significant sputtering effect such as the self-sputtering, cesium sputtering, and chemical sputtering was observed.