BNL-107110-2014-JA

Laser Ion Source with Solenoid Field

Takeshi Kanesue,1, a) Yasuhiro Fuwa,2, 3 Kotaro Kondo,4 and Masahiro Okamura1
1)

Collider-Accelerator Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton,

New York 11973, USA
2)
Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-7501,
Japan
3)
RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
4)
Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors, Tokyo Institute of Technology,
2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan
(Dated: 4 November 2014)

Pulse length extension of highly charged ion beam generated from a laser ion source
is experimentally demonstrated. The laser ion source (LIS) has been recognized as
one of the most powerful heavy ion source. However it was dicult to provide long
pulse beams. By applying a solenoid eld (90 mT, 1 m) at plasma drifting section,
a pulse length of carbon ion beam reached 3.2 s which was 4.4 times longer than
the width from a conventional LIS. The particle number of carbon ions accelerated
by a radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) linear accelerator was 1.21011 , which was
provided by a single 1 J Nd-YAG laser shot. A laser ion source with solenoid eld
could be used in a next generation heavy ion accelerator.
PACS numbers: 07.77.Ka, 29.20.Ej, 29.27.-a
A performance of a particle accelerator strongly depends on its ion source. An intense
particle source may encourage an accelerator concept to become a next generation accelerator project. Especially for heavy ion accelerators, it has been dicult to provide intense
beams with highly-charged states. Although there are many operating proton sources with
more than a few tens of milliampere in the world1,2 , there was no project assuming the
same amount of current with highly-charged heavy ion beam.
Currently, electron cyclotron resonance ion source (ECRIS) is the most established ion
source and commonly used in major accelerator laboratories. Electron beam ion source
(EBIS) is also used to provide highly-charged heavy ion beam. Both ion sources typically
provide hundreds of microamperes to milliampere range of heavy ions with more than charge
state ten37 .
On the other hand, laser ion source (LIS) can provide highly-charged ion beam with a
beam current of more than hundreds of milliamperes. However, it has never been adopted
by major stream of the accelerators history since it was proposed in 19698,9 because of
mainly three problems: beam transportation, stability, and short beam pulse.
A LIS uses a pulsed high power laser focused onto a solid state target. The laser is
absorbed in the target, and target temperature goes up above transition temperature from
solid to vapor and plasma in the range of 1012 W/cm2 of laser power density. Electrons in
the plasma are thermalized by absorbing laser photons by inverse bremsstrahlung process,
and ionization proceeds. Initial plasma density produced by laser ablation is much higher
than that of ECRIS and EBIS. At the same time as plasma production, the laser-produced
plasma expands to perpendicular to the target surface10 . Also, plasma adiabatically expands
to both transverse and longitudinal direction. This expansion makes ion beam pulse from
nanosecond-range to microsecond-range. Current density and pulse width of the plasma
follow the relationships below during expansion:
T L
3

a) Electronic

mail: tkanesue@bnl.gov

(1)
(2)

(a)Target Free plasma expansion

RFQ electrodes

(b)
drift distance

RFQ electrodes

plasma confinement
j L -1

pulse width

j L -3

current density

more laser energy

pulse width

current density

Target Plasma confinement by Solenoid

(c)
drift distance

FIG. 1. (color online) Top and bottom of (a) are a conventional scheme and a scheme with solenoid,
respectively. (b) shows the conventional scheme to extend pulse width. (c) describes the concept
with a solenoid field.

where, T , , and L are pulse width, ion current density at an ion extraction point, plasma
drift distance which is the length between the target and the ion extraction point, respectively. In case short pulse width is not a problem, we can achieve more than hundreds of
milliamperes of ion beam by shortening the plasma drift distance.
However, it was dicult to transport and inject such an intense heavy ion beam to a
rst stage linear accelerator, typically radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) linac because of
a space charge eect. At CERN, as a part of LHC project, a high power LIS using 100
J CO2 laser had been studied intensively under the collaboration with ITEP11 , but was
terminated in 2003 due to low transmission eciency through the RFQ and stability issue.
The beam transportation problem was completely overcome by a direct plasma injection
scheme (DPIS) proposed in 200012 . In this scheme, ions are transported in neutralized
plasma state to avoid beam loss issue at low energy beam transport line (LEBT). It was
veried experimentally that more than 10 mA of fully stripped carbon beam can be accelerated with this scheme13,14 . Also a series of experiments showed that good beam stability
can be achieved by precise control of a target position during experiment and use of a stable
solid state laser system. However, the obtained pulse length was less than 1 s. A short
pulse length was the last issue to be solved in the LIS.
The cause of short pulse is free expansion to all direction during plasma transportation.
As drifting, current density rapidly decreases proportionally to L3 , so there is a trade-o
between current and pulse width.
To extend ion beam pulse width, we adopt a transverse connement of plasma by a
solenoid magnet. Although researchers have been investigated the eect of an axial magnetic
eld on plasma, their primary concern is to increase a current density by focusing the
plasma15 or to bend a plasma transport line to separate impurities16 . However, our purpose
is to transport laser-produced plasma for a long distance to extend the plasma longitudinally.
Solenoid magnet is installed in a plasma expanding line. The solenoid is expected to depress
the plasma free expansion to transverse direction because plasma with ion and electron
moves along magnetic eld. The plasma expands only to longitudinal direction as same as
the free expansion without a solenoid magnet.
In the conventional LIS, to extend the beam pulse width we need to increase initial
amount of plasma by increasing laser power. A use of a solenoid magnet provides alternate
scheme to extend the pulse width. This concept is compared with the conventional scheme

C1+
C2+
C3+
C4+
C5+
C6+

Ion current (mA)

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
4

10

12

Time (s)

FIG. 2. (color online) Charge state distribution in a carbon plasma at ion extraction point.

in Fig. 1. The plasma density is enhanced through the solenoid and the long drift distance
is achieved without steep dilution. Transportation of neutralized plasma without space
charge in a solenoid magnet with high current density can overcome the last remained issue
of laser ion source.
In this letter, we describe the LIS concept using solenoid eld as a guide of laser-produced
plasma, and the experimental result of the LIS combining DPIS with solenoid magnet.
A RFQ accelerator dedicated to DPIS17 was used. We obtained 36 mA of C4+ beam
accelerated to 100 keV/u by the RFQ with pulse width of 3.2 s. The pulse width was
increased by a factor of four based on the previous experiment. We veried that the LIS
with solenoid could overcome the short pulse issue.
Prior to an acceleration test, charge state distribution in plasma was measured to estimate
the ion beam properties without a solenoid magnet. The experiments have been carried out
with a 1 J / 6 ns Nd:YAG laser with 1064 nm wavelength. The setup and analysis method
is similar to those used in earlier experiment18 .
A laser light with an incident angle of 30 degrees to the target, was focused onto a solid
target by a convex lens (f = 100 mm). The estimated laser power density was 6 1012
[W/cm2 ]. Carbon target was perpendicularly-placed to the beam line in the chamber.
The target position was changed after every shot to provide a fresh surface. The residual
gas pressure in entire setup was kept bellow an order of 104 Pa to reduce recombination
processes of the ablation plasma.
Total ion current was measured by a Faraday Cup (FC) at a distance of 2.38 m from the
target. The FC had a suppressor mesh biased to -3.5 kV to separate ions from plasma. To
measure charge state distribution, an electrostatic ion analyzer (EIA) was used instead of
the FC. A secondary electron multiplier (SEM) (Hamamatsu R2362) biased to -3.5 kV at
a distance of 3.70 m from the target detected ions after the EIA. The trigger signal was set
by a photo detector detecting the laser shot. A time-of-ight (TOF) spectra of each charge
state were obtained by scanning the dierent EIA voltages.
The TOF spectra were calibrated by total current of the FC signal assuming a gain
of the SEM was independent to ion energy and charge states. The achieved spectrum
were converted based on Eqs. (1) and (2) to the extraction condition for the following
ion-acceleration experiment (1.33 m from the target with 6 mm extraction aperture).
Figure 2 shows the TOF spectrum at the extraction point. We care mainly charge state
more than four because an ion source and a RFQ were set to maximize a C4+ yield in
the following acceleration test. The maximum ion current within the 6 mm aperture is 2.1
mA of C4+ with pulse width of 1.3 s at full width at half maximum (FWHM). Ions of
charge state over four reach the extraction point at the time between 4 to 10 s while ions
of charges state less than three have longer tails.
After charge state distribution was measured, we then studied a pulse extension of laser-

Nd:YAG Laser

Metal wall with bias voltage

Carbon

Solenoid

Lens

CT

RFQ Accelerator

Electrodes

EIA

Extraction nozzle with bias voltage

Target chamber

FC

FIG. 3. (color online) Setup for ion acceleration by RFQ.

produced plasma by the solenoid magnet. The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 3. This
RFQ can accelerate ion beam with a charge-to-mass ratio more than 1/3 corresponding to
C4+ from 20 keV/u to 100 keV/u. More details of the RFQ are shown in other paper17 . The
laser irradiation condition was same as those in the plasma measurement. The target plate
was placed in an isolated plasma production chamber located inside a target chamber. The
target was connected to the 3D manipulator through an isolated ceramic bar. The target
and the plasma production chamber were electrically connected and biased to 60 kV to
match the RFQ injection energy of 20 keV/u for C4+ .
Inside of the plasma production chamber and solenoid, the plasma expanding volume
was surrounded by metal walls to keep same electric potential between the target and
extraction point. Ions were extracted between the nozzle, which had 6 mm inner diameter,
and RFQ electrodes at a distance of 1.33 m from the target. A 1-m-long solenoid magnet
was installed between the target chamber and the RFQ. The maximum magnetic eld of
the solenoid was 90 mT. The distance between the target and the solenoid was 375 mm and
a distance between the solenoid and the extraction point was 80 mm.
A current prole was measured by a Current Transformer (CT) at the exit of the RFQ.
Ion beam after RFQ was analyzed by the EIA again with FC instead of the SEM. The FC
had suppressor mesh biased to -0.5 kV.
The CT detects a total ion beam prole. To discuss contents of the beam from the RFQ,
we dene three types of ion beam out of the RFQ. The rst group is fully accelerated
beam, which is a beam accelerated to the RFQ nominal output energy. The second group
is partially accelerated beam, which is a beam dropped from acceleration condition of the
RFQ during acceleration and not accelerated to the nominal energy. The third group is
an unaccelerated beam, which is a beam not accelerated by the RFQ but trapped and
transported by the RFQ transverse eld to the exit.
The accelerated beam was sampled by the slit and was analyzed by the EIA. By scanning
the applied voltage to the EIA, the fully accelerated beam of C4+ , C5+ , partially accelerated
beam, and the unaccelerated beam could be extracted.
To reconstruct the unaccelerated beam, signals measured by the FC at the EIA voltages
corresponding to the unaccelerated beam were divided by EIA voltages and summed considering a EIA voltage step. This reconstructed beam prole was normalized by a tail of the
CT signal where no accelerated signal was observed. Figure 4 shows the CT signal and the
accelerated beam prole. The CT peak current was recorded at 45 mA. The unaccelerated
beam was observed in the slow part of the CT signal, so the main part of the CT prole
consisted of the fully and partially accelerated beam.
The rest of the beam after subtracting the unaccelerated beam from the CT signal is the
accelerated beam. We estimated ion yield of fully accelerated C4+ beam using obtained
fractions of each charge state. We assumed the same transmission from CT to FC for all
ions, though ion beam with lower energy and higher current beam can have larger diverging
angle and lower transmission due to space charge eect. This leads to underestimation of
higher energy ion yield.
The charge ratio of fully accelerated C4+ , C5+ , C6+ , and partially accelerated beam were

50
CT signal
Accelerated beam

Ion current (mA)

40
30
20
10
0
2

10

12

14

16

18

20

Time (s)

FIG. 4. (color online) Carbon beam measured by CT at the exit of RFQ and wave form without
unaccelerated beam, respectively.

50
C4+ beam with solenoid
Estimated C4+ beam without solenoid

Ion current (mA)

40
30
20
10
0
0

12

Time (s)

FIG. 5. (color online) C4+ beam with and without solenoid under the same laser irradiation
condition. The wave form without solenoid is estimated based on the plasma measurement.

87%, 9.6%, 1.3%, and 2.2%, respectively. Based on this ratio, the number of the fully
accelerated particles of C4+ , C5+ , C6+ were estimated to be 1.2 1011 , 1.0 1010 , and
1.2 109 , respectively. The pulse width at 20% of maximum current of plasma at the RFQ
injection point was 3.4 s, and that of accelerated beam was 3.2 s. Ion beam induced from
laser ablation commonly has long tail. To truncate the tail, we dene pulse width at 20%
of maximum current.
Figure 5 shows wave forms of C4+ beam with and without solenoid under the same laser
irradiation condition. The solid line represents the accelerated beam with solenoid eld
reconstructed from the analyzed data. The dotted line is the C4+ beam without solenoid
eld. It is estimated based on the plasma measurement shown above. To obtain same peak
current, 36 mA, a plasma drift length can be calculated as 0.29 m. Pulse length of the solid
line was 3.2 s, which is 4.4 times longer than that of the dotted line, 0.7 s. Since the
plasma drift length with the solenoid result was 1.33 m, this extension factor agrees with
the ratio of plasma drift lengths.
The third set of the experiment were carried out to investigate the eect of solenoid eld
strength to the plasma guide. The same setup as the previous experiment was used. Ion
beam analysis using the EIA showed that the time structure and the fraction of each ion
beam group were similar to those in the previous experiment with 90 mT solenoid eld.
Figure 6 shows the peak current and the pulse width at FWHM of the CT signal as a

50

2.5

40

2.0

30

1.5

20

1.0

Peak current
Pulse width

10
0
0

20

40

60

80

0.5

Pulse width at FWHM (s)

Peak current (mA)

0.0
100

Solenoid (mT)

FIG. 6. (color online) CT peak current and pulse width at FWHM as a function of solenoid field.

function of the solenoid eld. The accelerated beam current was almost linearly increased
to the solenoid eld and not saturated at 90 mT of the maximum solenoid eld. The solenoid
eld was limited to 90 mT due to our setup restriction. It was found that a solenoid can
be used as a control knob for the accelerated current using a LIS.
In conclusion, we veried that the extension of pulse width of the extracted beam from
the LIS by transporting the laser produced plasma in the solenoid magnet. Also, we showed
that the connement of the laser produced plasma can be controlled by the solenoid eld.
These conclusions correspond to the plot shown in Fig. 1, That is, a current density is no
longer follow Eq. (2). Because the limitation on a pulse width was overcome, the use of LIS
should be considered to provide much intense beam than that from the existing ion sources.
This work was supported by U.S. Department of Energy, RIKEN, and Japan Society for
Promotion of Science.
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