Towards powerful negative ion beams at the test facility ELISE for the ITER and DEMO NBI systems

The test facility ELISE represents an important step in the European R&D roadmap towards the neutral beam injection (NBI) systems on ITER. ELISE provides early experience with operation of large radio frequency (RF) driven negative hydrogen ion sources. Starting with first plasma pulses in March 2013, ELISE has demonstrated stable 1 h plasma discharges with repetitive 10 s beam extraction pulses every 3 min in hydrogen and deuterium at the pressure of 0.3 Pa required by ITER. Stable ion currents of 9.3 A and 5.8 A have been extracted using only one quarter of the available RF power and reducing the extraction voltage in order to control the co-extracted electrons. The best hydrogen pulse for the required 1000 s for hydrogen gave an extracted current of 21.4 A and resulted in an accelerated current of 17.9 A, using only 53 kW per driver. Linear scaling towards full RF power (90 kW/driver) predicts that the target value of the negative ion current (H−: 33 A extracted, 23 A accelerated; D−: 28 A extracted and 20 A accelerated) can be achieved or even exceeded. Issues in long pulse operation are the caesium dynamics and the stability of the co-extracted electron current, for which the caesium management and the magnetic field configuration are promising tools for optimisation. Operation at high RF power for long pulses has highest priority for the next experimental campaign. In parallel or in a later stage, ELISE could serve as a test bed for studies on a DEMO NBI system. Examples are concepts concerning RF efficiency, operation with largely reduced caesium consumption or with caesium alternatives, and neutralization of the accelerated ion beam by a laser neutralizer in order to improve efficiency and reliability of NBI systems. Lab scale experiments on these topics are carried out presently in parallel with ELISE operation.