Status of high power ion beams research at Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology

High power ion beams are potentially useful for inertial confinement fusion and material processing, etc. Fruitful progresses have been achieved in the generation and diagnostics of high power ion beams at Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology in China. The high power ion beams presently are being produced on Flash II accelerator and 200kV accelerator in pinch diode. The method for enhancing the ratio of ion to electron current is to increase the electron residence time by pinching the electron flow. Furthermore electron beam pinching can be combined with electron reflexing to achieve ion beams with even higher efficiency and intensity. The anode plasma is generated by anode foil bombarded with electron and anode foil surface flashover. High power ion beams have been produced with a current of 160kA and an energy of 500keV corresponding to an ion beam peak power of about 80GW on FLASH II accelerator. The ion number and current of high power ion beams were determined by monitoring delayed radioactivity from nuclear reactions induced in a 12C target by the proton beams. The prompt γ-rays and diode bremsstrahlung X-rays were measured with PIN semi-conductor detector and plastic scintillator detector. The current density distribution of ion beam were measured with biased ion collector array. The ion beams were also recorded with a CR-39 detector. Thermal behavior and dynamic effect of high power ion beams on metallic materials were investigated in the recent years. © 2008 Institute of Fluid Physics, C.