A novel plasma source concept for negative ion generation in neutral beam injectors for fusion applications

Abstract A low-temperature plasma can very well be confined by a simple magnetic dipole, such as in the Van Allen belts of Earth’s magnetosphere. This configuration can be reproduced in laboratory as a small experimental device, designed in such a way that the magnetic field lines remain within a vacuum-tight container and are virtually not intercepted by the container wall. In this paper we propose to use a dipole field for the realization of an efficient negative Ion source. To this purpose, we analyze the plasma confinement capabilities of such plasma source, in order to assess the equilibrium pressure and estimate the particle trajectories and drifts.