B6 Characteristics of Electrical Breakdown for a Large Scale and

Area Electrode with Apertures in Vacuum

Author: 07TE082 Ahmad Hilmi

Supervising Professor: Professor Shinichi Kobayashi, Associate Professor Yasushi Yamano

1. Introduction coefficients, obtained in small electrodes with an

area of 50 cm2 (Φ 80 mm) and 201 cm2 (Φ 160 mm)
In JT-60SA fusion machine, the negative-ion-
are shown in this graph. For Φ 80 mm electrodes, the
based neutral beam injector (N-NBI) is designed by
C was kept to be constant for a small number of
Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to inject 10
apertures, and then decreased with number of the
MW, 100 s D0 beams from two negative ion sources,
apertures. The dependence of the C for the JT-60
each of which produces 22 A, 500 keV D − ion beams.
acceleration grid showed the similar tendency as that
In order to produce such high-power D− ion beams
for Φ 80 mm electrodes. Independently of the size of
for 100 s, a large negative ion source with multi-
the electrode, the C was varied with -0.156 powers of
aperture grids has been developed by modifying the
the aperture’s numbers.
JT-60U negative ion source.
4. Summary
High voltage holding of the ion source is one of
key techniques for the realization of the N-NBI. The The voltage holding capability of a large multi-
JT-60 negative ion source had suffered from a poor aperture grid was examined. Voltage holding
voltage holding capability of < 420 keV for long capability in the multi-aperture grid is found to be
years. However, the cause of the breakdowns in the determined by the number of apertures and the
ion source is not clarified yet. To clarify the cause of surface area. The voltage holding capability is varied
the breakdown, the influence of local electric fields with -0.156 powers of the aperture’s numbers, and
(LEF) created at the edge of apertures on the decreased with -0.128 powers of the surface area.
acceleration grids is examined. This paper reports the
5. Acknowledgment
experimental results of the relation between LEF and
voltage holding capability of JT-60 negative ion I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. M. Hanada,
source by changing the number of apertures. Dr. A. Kojima and also the JT-60NBI group of JAEA
Naka Fusion Institute for their guidance and support
2. Experiment Apparatus and Method
throughout the progress of my research.
The JT-60 negative ion source is composed of 2
main parts; an arc chamber and an accelerator. The
accelerator has 3 acceleration gaps between the
acceleration grids. Each of the grids is made of
oxygen free copper that has an area of 4950 cm 2 (41
cm X 110 cm) with 1080 apertures of 16 mm in
diameter and periphery that is tapered with 0.2 mm
on it. The grids are supported by the stainless-steel
support flames with a surface area of 15200 cm2 (Φ
160 cm). In the voltage holding capability test, the
gap between the 1st acceleration grid and the 2nd Figure 1 Dependence of voltage holding capability
acceleration grids was measured with various without breakdowns on the gap length
numbers of the apertures by applying DC high
voltage by a power supply of 300 kV and 10 mA for
130 s.
3. Results and Discussion
Figure 1 shows the dependence of voltage
holding without breakdowns on the gap length. Both
of the voltage holding capabilities for 216 and 1080
apertures increases with the square root of the gap
length. The coefficients (C) for 216 and 1080
apertures; defined as C=V/d 0.5, are 27.3 and 23.0,
respectively. The voltage holding capability for 216
apertures was higher than that for 1080 apertures.
The C is plotted as a function of the number of Figure 2 Coefficient of the square root curve as a
apertures in Figure 2. For the comparison, the function of number of the apertures

33