Towards ITER-Relevant CW Extraction at Negative Ion Sources for Fusion

Negative hydrogen or deuterium ion sources for neutral beam injection (NBI) systems used at fusion devices are based on the surface production process at a caesiated low work function converter surface. While producing a stable and globally homogeneous negative ion beam is not an issue, during long pulses typically a pronounced increase in the co-extracted electrons is observed, limiting the pulse length or the achievable performance. This effect is particularly pronounced in deuterium and it is attributed to an increasing work function of the converter surface. In the last years the negative ion source test facilities at IPP Garching, BATMAN Upgrade (using the small prototype source) and ELISE (using a source of the same width but only half the height of the ITER NBI source) have been converted into CW machines, making possible investigating at ITER conditions counter-measures for the increase in the co-extracted electrons. Investigations are performed, mainly at ELISE, on homogenizing and stabilizing the co-extracted electrons by affecting the ion source plasma close to the converter surface by means of biasing (additional) surfaces in the plasma.