Development of multi-beam ion accelerators for plasma heating

Reducing the size, power needs and cost of accelerators opens new opportunities in mass spectrometry, ion implantation and ultimately plasma heating for fusion. We have demonstrated a compact multi-beam RF accelerator [1] with ion acceleration in an array of 3x3 beams. Our technology is based on wafer-based components (silicon or circuit boards) where beam transport is in the direction of the surface normal to the wafer. This allows stacking of wafers to increase beam energy while limiting the peak voltage to several kilovolts. The wafer-based implementation allows us to operate multiple ions beams on a single wafer in parallel for much increased current densities per wafer in a multi-beamlet arrangement compared to a single beam with one large aperture. We report on the integration of all accelerator components (matching section, focusing elements and acceleration stages) and will discuss paths for scaling to high beam power for applications in manufacturing, materials analysis and fusion plasma heating.
[1] Persaud, A. et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 88, 063304 (2017); Seidl, P. A. et al. , Rev. Sci. Instrum. 89, 053302 (2018).