The heavy ion beams produced by modest energy accelerators can be a useful tool for creating strongly coupled plasmas in the warm dense matter regime of high energy density physics. These beams must be compressed both longitudinally and radially to near their emittance limit, in order to achieve the energy density required to drive a sample to the desired plasma state. However, the voltage errors in the acceleration waveforms, which are typical for these types of accelerators, introduce large perturbations to the longitudinal ion energy distribution. This project will overcome this limitation by developing a novel induction accelerator-based energy corrector, which will apply a time-dependent correction to the beam to remove the errors in the longitudinal ion energy distribution. Phase I determined the energy corrector requirements (voltage, accuracy, and bandwidth); designed an induction acceleration module to apply the energy correction to the ion beam; and designed agile-waveform, high-voltage modulators to power the induction acceleration module. In Phase II, prototype versions of the induction acceleration module and modulator will be constructed and tested, and a complete energy correction system will be constructed and tested. The system will then be transported to the national laboratory and installed on the ion beam compression experiment, in order to demonstrate the energy regulation of the ion beam.
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: In addition to the benefits to the heavy ion fusion program, the new class of agile-waveform, high-voltage modulators should find use in numerous applications including low and high energy particle accelerators, pulsed laser systems, RF and microwave generators, and lithographic sources.
