Publications

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We investigate the generation of intense pulsed focused ion beams at the 6MeV level using an inductive voltage adder (IVA) pulsed-power generator, which employs a magnetically insulated transmission line (MITL). Such IVA machines typical run at an impedance of few tens of Ohms. Previous successful intense ion beam generation experiments have often featured an "axial" pinch-reflex ion diode (i.e., with an axial anode-cathode gap) and operated on a conventional Marx generator/water line driver with an impedance of a few Ohms and no need for an MITL. The goals of these experiments are to develop a pinch-reflex ion diode geometry that has an impedance to efficiently match to an IVA, produces a reasonably high ion current fraction, captures the vacuum electron current flowing forward in the MITL, and focuses the resulting ion beam to small spot size. A new "radial" pinch-reflex ion diode (i.e., with a radial anode-cathode gap) is found to best demonstrate these properties. Operation in both positive and negative polarities was undertaken, although the negative polarity experiments are emphasized. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are consistent with experimental results indicating that, for diode impedances less than the self-limited impedance of the MITL, almost all of the forward-going IVA vacuum electron flow current is incorporated into the diode current. PIC results also provide understanding of the diode-impedance and ion-focusing properties of the diode. In addition, a substantial high-energy ion population is also identified propagating in the "reverse" direction, i.e., from the back side of the anode foil in the electron beam dump.

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In experiments conducted on the RITS-6 accelerator, the SMP diode exhibits sig- ni cant shot-to-shot variability. Speci cally, for identical hardware operated at the same voltage, some shots exhibit a catastrophic drop in diode impedance. A study is underway to identify sources of shot-to-shot variations which correlate with diode impedance collapse. To remove knob emission as a source, only data from a shot series conducted with a 4.5-MV peak voltage are considered. The scope of this report is limited to sources of variability which occur away from the diode, such as power ow emission and trajectory changes, variations in pulsed power, dustbin and transmission line alignment, and di erent knob shapes. We nd no changes in the transmission line hardware, alignment, or hardware preparation methods which correlate with impedance collapse. However, in classifying good versus poor shots, we nd that there is not a continuous spectrum of diode impedance behavior but that the good and poor shots can be grouped into two distinct impedance pro les. This result forms the basis of a follow-on study focusing on the variability resulting from diode physics. 3

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The level of energy deposition on future inertial fusion energy (IFE) reactor first walls, particularly in direct-drive scenarios, makes the ultimate survivability of such wall materials a challenge. We investigate the survivability of three-dimensional (3-D) dendritic materials fabricated by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and exposed to repeated intense helium beam pulses on the RHEPP-1 facility at Sandia National Laboratories. Prior exposures of flat materials have led to what appears to be unacceptable mass loss on timescales insufficient for economical reactor operation. Two potential advantages of such dendritic materials are (a) increased effective surface area, resulting in lowered fluences to most of the wall material surface, and (b) improvement in materials properties for such micro-engineered metals compared to bulk processing. Several dendritic fabrications made with either tungsten and tungsten with rhenium show little or no morphology change after up to 800 pulses of 1 MeV helium at reactor-level thermal wall loading. Since the rhenium is added in a thin surface layer, its use does not appear to raise environmental concerns for fusion designs.

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