Doppler Shift Spectra of Hα Lines from Negative Ion Based Neutral Beams

The velocity spectra of the negative-ion-(H−) based neutral beams are studied in high-performance large-area ion sources during injection into large helical device fusion plasmas. We are conducting systematic observations in standard neutral beam injection to correlate beam spectra with source operating conditions. Almost all of the transmitted beam power was at full acceleration energy (∼170keV). The small stripping beam component which was produced in the extraction gap was evaluated to be about 9%–22% by amplitude of the measured spectra for the sources in beam lines 1 and 2. H− production uniformity from the spectrum profile was 86%–90% for three sources. For the longest pulse injection during 74 and 128 s, a full energy component tended to decrease with time, while the accelerator gap stripping tail tended to increase slightly with time, which is attributed to beam-induced outgassing in the accelerator. A higher conductance multislot ground grid accelerator appeared to show little growth in the accel...