In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.Subject: Re: A heretical thought
Date: Mar 16, 9:40 pm
Poster: Jim LuxOn Mar 16, 9:40 pm, Jim Lux wrote:
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>Any idea as to how much an ion gun suitable for IEC would cost to build or buy?.
Electron guns are very inexpensive (free, if you scrounge from a CRT). Bright ion sources are a bit more expensive, but fabrication isn't too tough... The materials are cheap, it's the machining and adjustment. You don't need exotic cathodes for this sort of application.
The book by Moore, et.al. "Building scientific apparatus" (A must have) describes several ion sources, and manufacturers of same.
I also ran across an interesting RF excited source from LLNL that is very bright and also has good distribution of ions (lots of H+, but not much H2+ or H3+)