Ion Source

Lately, while running the reactor I’ve had to be incredibly careful while controlling the pressure of the chamber in order to keep the plasma ignited. If the pressure goes too low, there aren’t enough ions in the chamber to sustain the plasma or the fusion reaction. In order to remedy this, I have been working on throwing together a dirt simple/dirt cheap ion source.

Its loosely based off of the magnetron source designs used by Tyler Christensen and Robert Tubbs. In theory its really just an electrode surrounded by an electromagnet.

I started with a 2.75″ conflat flange with some small high voltage ceramic feedthroughs:

Then made a small filament out of stainless steel wire and attached it with some crimp connectors:


For a power supply I rectified a 9Kv NST with some 1Kv diodes that I wired up and then submerged in mineral oil to prevent arching:


Here is a picture of the whole setup mounted onto the chamber. You can kind of see the magnet coil wound around the chamber:

Finally a nice ion beam! You can see the filament over to the left:

Make sure to check back tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be posting on several new additions to the reactor setup.
-Chad Ramey