LANL NPB Project: Ion Source Selection and Development Path

Abstract

The ORNL team will provide LANL with a scoping / feasibility study of H - sources which could potentially be developed to approach the goal of producing a single high-duty-factor H - beam of up to ~100 mA suitable for acceleration by an RFQ. Currently, no existing H - sources have been shown to operate anywhere near this goal so the study will focus on identifying the most promising approach and define the existing option space. Attention will be given to source concepts which are most likely to be scalable to continuous beam operation while offering lower-risk, lower duty-factor or beam current operation in the shorter term. The study will discuss the technology within this option space, tradeoffs and identify the best path forward. Once the best option is identified, an estimate of the expected output emittance, beam current, achievable beam duty-factor, hydrogen and cesium consumption rates, physical size and weight estimates of the source and supporting subsystems will be provided. This work will lay the foundation for developing a conceptual source design in Development 2 which will inform an actual mechanical design that will be used to either construct a prototype source or modify an existing source as part of a future technology development program for the project. The relative technology development risk and mitigations would also be defined for the candidate ion source technologies for a TRL 5 demonstration. Risk analysis for later TRL 6 phases and beyond would be part of a later phase of the project.