CERN has a long history of providing different types of ion beams for high-energy physics, both with fixed targets and in the LHC. Over the years, the user community was growing, and the range of requested beam types and species continued to expand. Especially in the last couple of years a Future Ions Working Group was established at CERN and tasked with collecting all the requests,...
The Linear IFMIF (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility) Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) aims at validating the design of the low energy section of the 40 MeV/125 mA IFMIF deuteron accelerator up to 9 MeV in continuous-wave (CW) operation. For such a high-power deuteron accelerator, the LIPAc injector is required to provide a stable deuteron beam of 100 keV, 140 mA with low...
Driven by the increasing demands on high-intensity heavy ion beams, next-generation acceleration facilities require unprecedented beam intensities from the front-ends, such as High Intensity Heavy-io Accelerator Facility (HIAF) constructed in China. The future upgrade of HIAF requires its injector to deliver over 50 pμA U beams with a charge state beyond 40, which is far beyond the capability...
High current ion implanters for semiconductor manufacturing are primarily used for doping and amorphization of source and drain regions of devices on silicon wafers. Most often this is done with a spot beam that is scanned across the wafer as the wafer moves up and down. Applied Materials does it with a ribbon beam that allows for greater dose rate on the wafer. With this architecture comes...
Since the 1940s, when radioactive iodine was first used to treat hyperthyroidism and later thyroid cancer, the field of nuclear medicine has grown substantially, benefiting tremendously from technological advancements in physics, chemistry, and biology, as well as an increased understanding of disease mechanisms and immunology. From the early days of the cyclotron for radioisotope production...
Semiconductor device manufacturing involves a complex series of processes on silicon wafers. Implanting ions for transistor doping or surface modification is performed at ion energies from sub-keV to a few MeV and require ion currents ~ uA to 100 mA. This wide range requires a broad set of implanter tool types. Across that range are requirements that the ion source has 400 hours of life and...
Many common nuclear fusion concepts actively being investigated rely on particle injection from ion sources. While many of these sources have been developed in publicly funded laboratories, we have seen a rapidly growing interest from the private sector in recent years, with the number of private fusion companies more than doubling in the last 6 years alone. With this growing interest, a...
The Joint European Torus (JET) completed its extraordinary
experimental lifetime in December 2023. JET had the unique
capability to operate with tritium and exploited this to complete
deuterium-tritium (D-T) experiments in both 2021 and 2023.
These experimental campaigns, known as DTE2 and DTE3, broke
the world record fusion energy record, achieving 59MJ and 69MJ
respectively. Further to...
The Stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) used neutral beam injection (NBI) for plasma heating in the last four experimental campaigns (called OP1.2b, OP2.1, OP2.2, and OP2.3). In OP1.2b was the initial operation of the first injector box with two sources. In OP2.1 the second injector box with two sources was brought into operation. In OP2.2 and OP2.3 both boxes were used routinely for...
To explore the key technology of negative-ion-based neutral beam injection (NNBI), a NNBI test facility is under construction in the frameworks of the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology (CRAFT). During the second experimental campaign of the CRAFT NNBI test facility, the 100 seconds and megawatt-class negative hydrogen beams have been repeatably achieved via a dual-driver RF...
The ITER NBI system will rely on the neutralization of accelerated hydrogen/deuterium negative ion beams, extracted from a plasma ion. A radio-frequency (RF) current with 1 MHz excites cylindrical coils, which generate the discharge in eight quartz cylinders, called drivers, and it expands into a bigger metallic chamber equipped with an extraction system. The negative ions are extracted...
In order to treat a deep-seated tumor in a body by radiations, it is important to decrease the damage to normal organs surrounding the tumor. The high energy ion beam gives the good localized dose distribution on such tumors. This advantage was proposed by R. Wilson in 1946. First, proton beams have been utilized since 1954, after that, heavier ion beams have been utilized since 1970s at...
The MAST Upgrade machine is equipped with two Neutral Beam Injectors, which deliver on- and off-axis deuterium neutral beam power to the tokamak plasma. The injectors are based on filament driven arc discharge ion sources (Positive Ion Neutral Injectors, PINIs) in “supercusp” filter field configuration with a maximum design deuterium beam voltage and current of 75 kV and 65 A, respectively....
This work presents a comprehensive study of the Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Plasma Accelerator (ECRIPAC) concept, an idea developed in the nineties for a compact, plasma-based accelerator capable of producing high-energy pulsed ion beams using robust and well-established technologies. The limited literature and absence of experimental prototypes motivate further studies on the...
Negative hydrogen ion sources have applications across many fields, from particle accelerators (e.g., for high-energy applications in facilities such as CERN, or in spallation neutron source facilities such as ISIS) to magnetic fusion experiments (e.g., those utilising neutral beam injection for plasma heating and diagnosis). In the case of particle accelerators, a common cause of transport...
The Sarajevo ion accelerator (SARAI) comes as a result of a successful transfer of the CERN’s 750 MHz radiofrequency quadrupole (RFQ) technology, adapted for societal and medical applications. Designed to generate alpha particles and ions with a charge-to-mass ratio of 1/2 for ion beam analysis research, SARAI incorporates an industrial electron cyclotron resonance supernanogan ion source...
Superheavy element (SHE) research focuses on understanding the structure of the heaviest nuclei at the edges of the proposed Island of Stability as well as the synthesis of new elements. Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion sources are an important part of this endeavor since superheavy elements (z>104) can be created by bombarding a target with an ion beam that is often produced by an ECR...
Highly efficient microwave coupling and plasma chamber that can handle high power are key technologies for the existing third-generation ECR ion source operating at 24~28 GHz/10 kW and as well for the new fourth-generation ECR ion source operating at 45 GHz/25 kW. The use of a small-diameter waveguide antenna was first demonstrated that changing the microwave power distribution on the ECR...
Driven by the fast development of heavy ion linacs and next generation heavy ion accelerators, higher performance high intensity highly-charged heavy ion beams are strongly needed. The next generation ECR ion sources operated at 45~56 GHz have the potential to produce highly charged ion beams with the intensities by several folds of those for the 3rd generation ECR ion sources. A 4th...
High performance highly-charged ECR ion sources have been operated for more than 40 years to deliver highly-charged heavy ion beams for worldwide cyclotron and linac heavy ion accelerators. Successful operations of the 3rd generation highly-charged ECR ion sources operating at 24-35 GHz microwave frequency such as LBNL 28GHz VENUS, IMP 24-28 GHz SECRAL&SECRAL-II, RIKEN 28 GHz SCECRIS and FRIB...
The Diagnostic Neural Beam (DNB) for ITER is a part of India’s in-kind commitment to ITER. The 100 keV 20 A Ho beam shall be used to monitor He ash fraction using the CXRS diagnostic technique. Realizing DNB to meet the operational goals is challenging both from the engineering and operational perspectives.
The engineering perspective of first of kind large sized components includes various...
SPIDER is the full-sized ion source prototype for the ITER Heating Neutral Beams (HNB). Hosted by Consorzio RFX in Padova, Italy, it forms part of the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF). SPIDER has for the first time operated with fully opened beam segments, up to ¼ of the designed beam extraction area. With an increase in the maximum achieved RF power and acceleration voltage, this has...
The Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology (CRAFT) serves as an integration of diverse testing and demonstrating facilities. Its primary aim is to develop crucial technologies and key prototype systems for the magnetic confinement fusion reactor.Neutral beam injection (NBI) system, as an effective means of plasma heating, has been widely adopted in magnetic-confinement nuclear...
Negative hydrogen ion sources for fusion rely on the surface conversion of hydrogen atoms and/or positive ions to H$^-$ on low-work function (caesiated) surfaces. A low source filling pressure of 0.3 Pa is required to minimize stripping losses in the accelerator at ITER. Particularly in RF sources, the beam divergence depends strongly on the pressure – between 0.4 Pa and 0.3 Pa the divergence...
The ITER neutral beam injection (NBI) system will deliver a large negative deuterium or hydrogen beam (≈2 m×1 m) with an accelerated current of 40 A negative deuterium ions (46 A in hydrogen). The ion beam is extracted from an ion source where a plasma is generated in eight cylindrical RF drivers by inductive coupling (P$_{\mathrm{RF}}$<100 kW/driver, f=1 MHz). Four horizontal pairs of drivers...
Rare isotope beams are produced at the ISAC facility at TRIUMF by bombarding solid targets with 480 MeV protons at a current up to 100 µA. With target material at high temperature products will diffuse out and are guided into an ion source. Extracted ions are mass analyzed and either be send directly to experiments at an energy of several 10 keV or further accelerated to study nuclear reaction...
At the TwinEBIS test bench an electron gun of Brillouin-type has been operated since a few years. It is expected that this type of gun should yield the highest electron beam compression, therefore allowing for rapid production of bunched C6+ ions, as required by the “all-linac accelerator” used for cancer therapy. Significant performance improvements have been achieved at the test bench...
Beijing Feifan Langtian Tech. Co., Ltd. (also known as “Prodigy”), founded in 2004, specializes in the R&D, manufacturing and sales of microwave products. Our comprehensive product portfolio covers 50-3000W full-band spatial combining power amplifiers, microwave power sources, up-converters, microwave components etc. We also provide customized M&C software and integration services related. Our...
Radioactive ion beam production at Isotope Separation On-Line (ISOL) facilities depends on ion sources that offer high selectivity, stability, and efficiency. At TRIUMF, recent developments in FEBIAD ion source technology have focused on two complementary avenues: operational optimization and component redesign enabled by modern manufacturing. Systematic tuning of source parameters, combined...
Resonant laser ionization is an efficient and highly selective method for producing radioisotopes. In the laser ion source of ISOLDE – RILIS (Resonance Ionization Laser Ion Source), the laser interaction region is inside a metal tube which is heated to temperatures of up to 2200 degrees Celsius. This heating induces surface ionization from the walls of this so-called “hot cavity”. If the...
Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source charge breeding (CB) technique was invented in the 1990s in the context of Isotope Separation On Line facilities development for the study of atomic nuclei far from stability. ECR CB allows the 1+ beam injection on the source axis at the higher magnetic mirror side. After the capture of the injected ions into the support plasma, they are...
The closed shell breeding technique has been used to significantly improve the charge breeding efficiency of the Argonne National Laboratory electron beam ion source. The source serves as a charge breeder for the Californium Rare Isotope Breeder Upgrade (nuCARIBU), accepting radioactive beams of 1+ or 2+ ions and raising their charge state for efficient post-acceleration in the ATLAS linac....
ECR charge breeders are used to increase the charge state of radioactive ion beams (RIB) from 1+ to N+ in facilities using the isotope online production scheme (ISOL). ECR charge breeders can accept incoming 1+ RIB as high as a few µA, the method reaches ion charge conversion efficiency up to 20% with a characteristic time of the order of 15 ms per charge state. A drawback of ECR charge...
SPIRAL1 is a unique radioactive ion beam (RIB) production facility as it can operate with several primary beams and target materials for isotope production. The upgrade of the last decade also allowed ionizing isotopes of non-gaseous elements, considerably extending the number of possible RIBs.
We will review recent progress supported with experimental results and discuss on-going and planned...
ECR ion source development is generally following the scaling laws and now is stepping into the 4th generation era. Nevertheless, the fundamental issues that determine the performance of a high performance ECR ion source remain the same, i.e. the magnetic field, microwave heating and ion confinement and extraction. Unfortunately, as most of the high performance ECR ion sources are busy with...
A high-resolution optical emission spectrometer has been implemented as a
non-invasive diagnostic tool to investigate plasma behaviour in the GTS-LHC Electron
Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source (ECRIS). This approach aims to establish correlations
between spectral features and neutral particle densities, thereby contributing to the
development of real-time optical feedback mechanisms for the...
High-power lasers are routinely used to generate energetic positively charged ions. In laser-plasma ion acceleration experiments negative ions and neutral atoms have been observed when energetic positive ions were passing through the spray of nanometer-sized water droplets. Beams of negative ions and neutral atoms have the same properties as beams of positive ions: energy, direction, and...
We report on adding a mutiwavelength emission and absorption diagnostic to the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) $H^-$ ion source. The LANSCE $H^-$ ion source is a filament/arc driven, multi-cusp, surface conversion based system. Historical trends for setting runtime parameters and user ``know-how" are the primary tools for tuning and running the ion source. In this work we are ...
The production of high energy neutral hydrogen/deuterium beams (0.87MeV/1MeV) with more than 90% homogeneity and extremely low divergence ($<$7mrad) is one of the biggest challenges for the realization of the ITER Neutral Beam Injector system.
To reach this goal, the ITER-like radio-frequency negative ion source, SPIDER, is in operation at the Neutral Beam Test Facility in Padua since...
The efficient and reliable production of negative ions is a key challenge for all H$^-$/D$^-$ ion sources. The method with the highest production rate of H$^-$/D$^-$ relies on the surface conversion of atomic and positively charged hydrogen/deuterium particles at a low work function (WF) surface. The state-of-the-art to obtain the low WF is by evaporating Cs, the element with the lowest WF...
We have been experimentally measuring the charge state distribution of the multiply-charged ion current generated and extracted from an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source (ECRIS), and plasma parameters in the ECRIS, and then investigating the correspondence between them. According to the accessibility conditions of wave propagation in the magnetized ECRIS plasma, it is speculated...
To improve the performances of ECR In Sources, several approaches are possible. One proposed by INFN consists in the re-design of the plasma chamber and of its microwave injection system. In this work we propose innovative plasma chamber named IRIS (Innovative Resonator Ion Source), whose shape is derived from the electrons last iso-density surface as the electrons move under the influence...
Volume production of negative hydrogen ions relies on the dissociative attachment process by which low-energy electrons attach to highly vibrationally excited molecules (H$_2(v^*)$), the latter being produced predominantly by high-energy electrons. Understanding the processes leading to high H$_2(v^*)$ populations gives the opportunity to optimize H$^-$ volume sources. This contribution...
Within the INFN PANDORA project, a fully superconductive ECR plasma trap-based research facility is being developed to measure β-decays in magnetized plasmas. This infrastructure also enables fundamental and applied plasma physics studies through non-invasive multi-diagnostics systems, with implications for ion source R&D. X-ray diagnostics emerge a very powerful tool for monitoring plasma...
In an Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source for heavy-ion accelerators, the plasma is confined by a magnet system composed by a combination of sextupole and solenoid coils which generate a magnetic field characterized by closed iso-surfaces. Third generation sources operate at RF frequencies in the 20 to 30 GHz range and implement coils made with Nb-Ti superconductor producing magnetic...
Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is an emerging treatment in nuclear medicine and radiation therapy, offering precise cancer cell targeting while sparing healthy tissue. The discharge chamber, a critical component of the BNCT ECR ion source, significantly impacts ion source performance and beam quality. This article details the design of the second BNCT accelerator ECR ion source (BNCT02...
This article summarizes the discussions during the PIBHI 2025 workshop highlighting the most crucial points emerged. The workshop's main purpose was to stimulate debate among participants on various topics of interest to the community in dedicated round tables.
The discussions covered several key arguments with a huge impact on daily ECRIS operations and in perspective on the development of...
Abstract. Today, negative ion sources, particularly those producing H- ions are used extensively in many large, accelerator-based, user facilities operating worldwide. Beams of H- ions have become the preferred means of filling circular accelerators and storage rings as well as enabling efficient extraction from cyclotrons. Such facilities include the US Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), Japan...
Laser-driven approaches to ion acceleration are the focus of significant scientific attention in light of the beams’ unique temporal properties as well as the compactness and versatility of the acceleration process.
Most of the experimental activity has focused so far on the acceleration of protons, through sheath acceleration processes acting at the rear of laser-irradiated foils, where...
The High Intensity Polarized Proton Source and Siberian Snakes enabled RHIC's high-luminosity polarized proton beams to study proton spin structure, conduct fundamental tests of QCD, and conduct electroweak interactions. For 25 years, the polarized proton source based on OPPIS (Optically Pumped Polarized H- Ion Source) reliably delivered the high-intensity polarized proton beam for the RHIC...
The RF-driven $\mathrm{H^-}$ ion source has demonstrated a maintenance interval exceeding 7500 hours with nearly 100% availability. To achieve the goal of delivering 500 kW beam power to the spallation target, as required by CSNS-II, the beam current from the ion source must be increased while minimizing the beam emittance. Research on beam intensity, space charge compensation, and stripped...
The SNS accelerator complex features a front-end H- injector equipped with an RF-driven H- ion source and an electrostatic low energy beam transport (LEBT) system. Recent advancements in the beam extraction system have successfully increased the H- ion source beam output capability from ~60 mA to ~120 mA, while operating reliably at the routine RF power level of roughly 50 kW and a duty-factor...
