Negative ion-based neutral beam injector

• US 9,591,740 B2
• Filed: 03/03/2015
• Issued: 03/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tae Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Tri Alpha Energy, Inc.
• Inventors: Belchenko, Yuri I., Burdakov, Alexander V., Davydenko, Vladimir I., Dimov, Gennady I., Ivanov, Alexander A., Kobets, Valeery V., Smirnov, Artem N., Binderbauer, Michl W., Sevier, Donald L., Richardson, Terrence E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hammond, Dedei K
• Application Number:
  US14/637,231
• Publication Number:
  US 20150245461A1
• Time in Patent Office: 735 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H05H 3/02 Molecular or atomic beam generation charge exchange devices G21K1/14; polarising devices G21K1/16; using resonance or molecular beams for analysing or investigating materials G01N24/002; atomic clock G04F5/14; beam masers H01S1/06

Abstract

A negative ion-based neutral beam injector comprising a negative ion source, accelerator and neutralizer to produce about a 5 MW neutral beam with energy of about 0.50 to 1.0 MeV. The ions produced by the ion source are pre-accelerated before injection into a high energy accelerator by an electrostatic multi-aperture grid pre-accelerator, which is used to extract ion beams from the plasma and accelerate to some fraction of the required beam energy. The beam from the ion source passes through a pair of deflecting magnets, which enable the beam to shift off axis before entering the high energy accelerator. After acceleration to full energy, the beam enters the neutralizer where it is partially converted into a neutral beam. The remaining ion species are separated by a magnet and directed into electrostatic energy converters. The neutral beam passes through a gate valve and enters a plasma chamber.

Claims

1. A negative ion-based neutral beam injector comprises

an ion source adapted to produce a negative ion beam,

an accelerator, wherein the accelerator includes a pre-accelerator and a high energy accelerator, wherein the pre-accelerator is an electrostatic multi aperture grid in the ion source, and wherein the high energy accelerator is spaced apart from the ion source, and

a neutralizer, wherein the ion source, accelerator and neutralizer produce a neutral beam with power of 5 MW.

2. The injector of claim 1, wherein the ion source, accelerator and neutralizer produce a neutral beam with energy of 0.50 to 1.0 MeV.

3. The injector of claim 2, wherein the ion source is adapted to produce a 9 A negative ion beam.

4. The injection of claim 1, wherein ions from the ion source are pre-accelerated by the pre-accelerator to 120 kV before injection into the high energy accelerator.

5. The injector of claim 4 wherein the ion source includes a plasma box and plasma drivers.

6. The injector of claim 5 wherein the internal walls of the plasma box and plasma drivers are maintainable at elevated temperatures of 150-200°

C. to prevent cesium accumulation on their surfaces.

7. The injector of claim 6 wherein the plasma box and drivers include fluid manifolds and passageways to circulate high temperature fluid.

8. The injector of claim 4 wherein the neutralizer includes a photon neutralizer based on a cylindrical cavity with highly reflective walls and pumping with high efficiency lasers.

9. The injector of claim 4 further comprising a residual ion energy recuperator.

10. The injection of claim 1, further comprising a pair of deflecting magnets, interposing the pre-accelerator and high energy accelerator, wherein the pair of deflecting magnets enables a beam from the pre-accelerator to shift off axis before entering the high energy accelerator.

11. The injection of claim 1, further comprising a distributing manifold for directly supplying cesium on plasma grids of the accelerator.

12. The injector of claim 11 wherein the plasma grids are positively biased to repel back streaming positive ions.

13. The injection of claim 1, wherein the pre-accelerator includes external magnets to deflect co-extracted electrons in an ion extraction and pre-acceleration regions.

14. The injection of claim 1, further comprising a pumping system to pump gas out from a pre-acceleration gap.

15. The injection of claim 1, wherein the high energy accelerator is spaced apart from the ion source by a transition zone comprising a low energy beam transport line.

16. The injector of claim 15 wherein the transition zone includes bending magnets, vacuum pumps and cesium traps.

17. The injector of claim 16 wherein the bending magnets deflect and focus the beam onto the axis of the high energy accelerator.

18. The injection of claim 1, further comprising magnetic lenses following the accelerator to compensate for over focusing in the accelerator and to form a parallel beam.

19. The injection of claim 1, wherein the neutralizer includes a plasma neutralizer based on a multi-cusp plasma confinement system with high field permanent magnets at the walls.

20. The injector of claim 1 wherein the neutralizer includes a photon neutralizer based on a cylindrical cavity with highly reflective walls and pumping with high efficiency lasers.

21. The injector of claim 10 further comprising a residual ion energy recuperator.

22. The injector of claim 1 further comprising a residual ion energy recuperator.

23. A negative ion-based neutral beam injector comprises

an ion source adapted to produce a negative ion beam,

an accelerator, wherein the accelerator includes a pre-accelerator and a high energy accelerator, wherein the pre-accelerator is in the ion source and the high energy accelerator is spaced apart from the ion source, and

a neutralizer coupled to the ion source.

24. A negative ion-based neutral beam injector comprises

an ion source adapted to produce a negative ion beam, wherein the ion source includes a plasma box and plasma drivers, and wherein internal walls of the plasma box and plasma drivers are maintainable at elevated temperatures of 150-200°

C. to prevent cesium accumulation on their surfaces,

an accelerator operably coupled to the ion source, and

a neutralizer operably coupled to the ion source.