The system of nanosecond 280-keV-He+ pulsed beam

Abstract

At Fast Neutron Research Facility, the 150 kV-pulses neutron generator is being upgraded to a 280-kV-pulsed-He beam for time-of-flight Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. It involves replacing the existing beam line elements by a multicusp ion source, a 400-kV accelerating tube, 45°-double focusing dipole magnet and quadrupole lens. The multicusp ion source is a compact filament-driven of 2.6 cm in diameter and 8 cm in length. The current extracted is 20.4 μA with 13 kV of extraction voltage and 8.8 kV of Einzel lens voltage. The beam emittance has found to vary between 6-12 mm mrad. The beam transport system has to be redesigned based on the new elements. The important part of a good pulsed beam depends on the pulsing system. The two main parts are the chopper and buncher. An optimized geometry for the 280 keV pulsed helium ion beam will be presented and discussed. The PARMELA code has been used to optimize the space charge effect, resulting in pulse width of less than 2 ns at a target. The calculated distance from a buncher to the target is 4.6 m. Effects of energy spread and phase angle between chopper and buncher have been included in the optimization of the bunch length. © 2005 IEEE.