High energy acceleration of H- ion beam at MeV test facility

MeV test facility was constructed for proof-of-principle test of 1 MeV, 1 A class negative ion beam acceleration. The dimensions of the ion source/accelerator is 2 m in diameter and 1.9 m in height. The H- ions were produced in a KAMABOKO shaped volume production type negative ion source, and extracted through 49 apertures of 14 mm in diameter. The accelerator is a five-stage electrostatic accelerator with insulator columns made of fiber reinforced plastic (FRP). The accelerator was conditioned to hold the voltage up to 760 kV without beam. Then the H- ion beams of 0.23 A (drain current) were successfully accelerated up to 700 keV for 1 s. Degradation of voltage holding characteristics was not observed with/without the beam at this level of the current and energy. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics