Recent status of the development of intense ion beams

Taking the development of large current, negative ion sources which is in progress aiming at nuclear fusion reactors and the development of high luminance ion sources planned as a part of the Omega Project as the examples, the technology for generating high power ion beams is explained. Both these projects are positioned at the limit of the present technology of high power ion beam application as their targeted beam power reaches several tens MW. Consequently, the requirement for the ion sources is severe, and in particular, the generation of the ion beams having large current density with good convergence is beyond all precedents. The application of high power ion sources has been realized as the neutral beam injectors for large tokamaks. Also the hydrogen negative ion source of large current and the electrostatic acceleration technology for negative ion beams have been developed. Large plasma sources, the method of generating negative ions and the extraction of large current ions are explained. As for the neutral beam injectors for nuclear fusion, large current, negative ion sources, the acceleration of negative ion beams, the convergence of beams and actual projects are described. Also the ion sources for high intensity accelerators beings planned are outlined. (K.I.)