Halogens for negative ion beams and ion–ion plasmas

Negative ions have attractive features as drivers for inertial confinement fusion, because they will avoid electron cloud effects, and could be efficiently photodetached to neutrals after the final focus, which could also be beneficial in heating warm dense matter targets. The halogens have large electron affinities, and thus should be able to produce high current densities of relatively robust negative ions. Recent experiments comparing chlorine beams to argon beams using the same source, extraction optics, and diagnostics have demonstrated that Cl− beams can be produced with similar emittance to Ar+ beams, and with about 34 the current density from the same configuration. The observed effective beam temperature of about 13eV, and the similarity of current densities show that negative halogen beams can meet the current density and emittance requirements of heavy ion fusion. The near equivalence of the Cl− and Cl++Cl2+ current densities reaching the Faraday cup after passage through a substantial line density of effluent gas demonstrates that beam losses in the higher vacuum of a heavy ion fusion accelerator should be acceptable. A number of lines of evidence show that negative ion–positive ion plasmas (hereafter ion–ion plasmas), composed primarily of negative and positive ions with a small population of electrons, were produced in the sources near the extractor plane. Since Cl, F, I, and Br should all show similar chemistry, any of these halogens should be suitable as fusion driver beams, and heating thin iodine or bromine foils may produce ion–ion plasmas in the warm dense matter regime.