Development of compact 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 report on the development of multi-beam radio frequency (RF) linear ion accelerators that are formed from stacks of low cost wafer-based components (silicon or printed circuit boards). This implementation allows us to operate multiple ion beams in parallel for increased current densities per wafer in a multi-beamlet arrangement compared to a single beam with one large aperture. When scaled to high beam power, with ion currents of many amperes and ion kinetic energies >1 MeV, our approach offers a low cost route to heat plasmas for potential future fusion energy applications where an order of 1 MJ of beam energy can be delivered into plasma target. It can also be advanced for the development of cost competitive fusion drivers for inertial confinement fusion. We will report the beam demonstration of 100 keV Ar+ ions using an array of 112 beamlets in stacks of 32 wafers.The acceleration gradient is approximately 0.4 MV/m.