Commissioning of two RF operation modes

for RF negative ion source experimental

setup at HUST
Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 1869, 030049 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4995769
Published Online: 09 August 2017

D. Li, D. Chen, K. Liu, P. Zhao, C. Zuo, X. Wang, H. Wang, and L. Zhang

ARTICLES YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN

Online tuning of impedance matching circuit for long pulse inductively coupled plasma source
operation—An alternate approach
Review of Scientific Instruments 85, 013510 (2014); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4863098

Design of the plasma grid for a short pulse negative ion source experimental setup at HUST
AIP Conference Proceedings 1869, 030048 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4995768

Physics-electrical hybrid model for real time impedance matching and remote plasma
characterization in RF plasma sources
Review of Scientific Instruments 87, 02B312 (2016); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4932558

AIP Conference Proceedings 1869, 030049 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4995769 1869, 030049

© 2017 Author(s).
 Commissioning of two RF operation modes for RF negative
ion source experimental setup at HUST
D. Li a), D. Chen, K. Liu, P. Zhao, C. Zuo, X. Wang, H. Wang, L. Zhang

State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology, School of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
a)
Corresponding author: lidonghust@hust.edu.cn

Abstract. An RF-driven negative ion source experimental setup, without a cesium oven and an extraction system, has
been built at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). The working gas is hydrogen, and the typical
operational gas pressure is 0.3 Pa. The RF generator is capable of delivering up to 20 kW at 0.9 - 1.1 MHz, and has two
operation modes, the fixed-frequency mode and auto-tuning mode. In the fixed-frequency mode, it outputs a steady RF
forward power (Pf) at a fixed frequency. In the auto-tuning mode, it adjusts the operating frequency to seek and track the
minimum standing wave ratio (SWR) during plasma discharge. To achieve fast frequency tuning, the RF signal source
adopts a direct digital synthesizer (DDS). To withstand high SWR during the discharge, a tetrode amplifier is chosen as
the final stage amplifier. The trend of maximum power reflection coefficient |ȡ|2 at plasma ignition is presented at the
fixed frequency of 1.02 MHz with the Pf increasing from 5 kW to 20 kW, which shows the maximum |ȡ|2 tends to be
“steady” under high RF power. The experiments in auto-tuning mode fail due to over-current protection of screen grid.
The possible reason is the relatively large equivalent anode impedance caused by the frequency tuning. The
corresponding analysis and possible solution are presented.

INTRODUCTION
High-power RF-driven negative ion source is a key device of a neutral beam injection (NBI) system for magnetic
confinement fusion (MCF) in future [1]. To study related mechanism and gain some knowledge on technology,
Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) started to build a RF negative ion source experimental
setup since 2011 [2]. The main body of the setup is shown in Fig. 1, it consists of a high-power ion source driver, a
plasma expansion chamber and a vacuum chamber in this phase. A cesium oven and an extraction system will be
developed in the next phase. The overall structure refers to the BATMAN facility at the Max Planck Institute of
Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, but our setup has a rounded cross section for the expansion chamber. The
working gas is hydrogen, and the typical operational gas pressure is 0.3 Pa. The maximum discharge pulse length
depends on the operating RF power, which is usually less than 10s.
Because the impedance of the RF antenna coil depends on the plasma parameters inside the driver, the
impedance matching is very important for the RF negative ion source. There are two main approaches to achieve the
impedance matching currently. One is to adjust capacitors by mechanical actuators in the matching network [3]. Its
principle is easy, but the mechanical adjustment is slow and cannot follow the variation of the load quickly at
plasma ignition, which implies that the RF generator would withstand a high reflected power (Pr). The maximum Pr
is the main concern for the RF generator. In order to research the trend of the maximum power reflection coefficient
(|ȡ|2), i.e. the ratio of the Pr to the RF forward power (Pf), the capacitors are preset to meet the matching condition
without plasma inside the driver, then they are kept unchanged during the discharge and the RF generator is operated
in the fixed-frequency mode, in which RF generator outputs a steady Pf at a preset frequency. Therefore, the
impedance mismatching resulted from the lagging of mechanical adjustment is maximized, and the maximum Pr can
be observed in this method.

Fifth International Symposium on Negative Ions, Beams and Sources (NIBS 2016)
AIP Conf. Proc. 1869, 030049-1–030049-6; doi: 10.1063/1.4995769
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1549-2/$30.00

030049-1
 FIGURE 1. The photo of the experimental setup

The other approach is to adopt a self-excited RF generator, which automatically tunes the operation frequency
with the load impedance change. This approach has been proved to be a feasible choice for RF negative ion source
by IPP [3]. However, it is difficult to achieve the perfect matching due to the unstable operation frequency, and its
electrical efficiency is low in order to avoid the frequency flipping as reported in [4].
A new approach is discussed in [3, 5], in which the impedance is matched by adjusting the operation frequency
actively, this is feasible because the equivalent load impedance also changes with the operation frequency. This new
technique is also applied in our RF generator, and the auto-tuning operation mode is developed. In this mode RF
generator adjusts the operating frequency in a certain range to seek and track the minimum standing wave ratio
(SWR) during the discharge.
The experiments have been carried out in the fixed-frequency and auto-tuning operation modes respectively. The
measurement result of the maximum |ȡ|2 in the fixed-frequency mode is presented, and the possible reason for the
failure in the auto-tuning mode is analyzed and discussed herein.

CONFIGURATION AND OPERATION MODES OF THE RF SYSTEM

The layout of the RF system is shown in Fig. 2. The RF generator is mainly comprised of an RF signal source,
amplifiers, a directional coupler and an RF controller. The RF signal source based on a direct digital synthesizer
(DDS) is capable of providing an RF signal with a frequency between 0.9 to 1.1 MHz, and is able to achieve fast
frequency tuning. The variable gain amplifier (VGA) is employed to control the amplitude of the RF signal. The
solid-state intermediate power amplifier (IPA) with a maximum output of 500W drives the final stage amplifier. The
tube amplifier could withstand higher reflected power than the solid-state amplifier, therefore a tetrode amplifier is
chosen as the final stage amplifier in our RF system (see Fig.3).

FIGURE 2. Layout of the RF system

030049-2
 (a) (b)
FIGURE 3. The photo of the RF generator (a) and the tetrode amplifier (b)

To achieve the maximum power transmission, a matching network is applied to transform the impedance of
5) DQWHQQD WR ȍ 7KH VFKHPDWLF diagram of the matching network is shown in Fig. 4, in which both shunt
capacitor Cp and serial capacitor Cs are adjustable. The RF antenna is a nine-turn coil with an inner diameter of
300 mm [6].
Zl=Rl+jXl
Cs
Equivalent impedance
of RF antenna
Coaxial Cable
Cp Zd=Rd+jXd

3:1
Transformer
FIGURE 4. Schematic diagram of the matching network

As mentioned above, our RF generator has two operation modes. In the fixed-frequency mode, the level of Pf,
the operating frequency, the protecting threshold of Pr and the pulse length are all preset. The Pf and operating
frequency are kept constant during the operation pulse. Whenever the Pr exceeds the threshold, the RF generator will
be shut down. In the auto-tuning mode, specific parameters including the strike frequency, the searching range, the
step size and tuning threshold of the SWR are also predetermined. The RF generator starts running at the strike
frequency, and then the operating frequency is tuned within the searching range to search and track the minimum
SWR condition. In this mode, the RF generator will also shut down once the Pr exceeds the threshold.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fixed-frequency Operation Mode

The Cp and Cs should be preset to meet the optimal matching condition with the initial RF antenna at the
operating frequency. In these experiments, the RF generator is operated at 1.02 MHz, the initial impedance of RF
antenna without plasma is measured using the LCR meter E4980A, and the measured results are Rd = 0.8 ȍDQGLd =
16.6 ȝ+. Therefore, the Cp and Cs should be set at 6200 pF and1600 pF, respectively. Hydrogen is used as the
working gas with a steady gas pressure of 0.3 Pa, while the peak gas pressure prior to RF pulse is around1.5 Pa. The
variation of the gas pressure vs time with Pf =12 kW is shown in Fig. 5. During plasma discharge, the Pf is kept
constant, but the Pr decreases to a steady value following the gas pressure trend. The |ȡ|2 is used to describe the level
of impedance mismatching, and the maximum |ȡ|2 appears at plasma ignition because the plasma density also
reaches a peak value at the gas puff. The change of maximum |ȡ|2 with Pf is shown in Fig. 6.

030049-3
 
FIGURE 5. Temporal behavior of the gas pressure in the case of Pf = 12kW

It is observed that the slope of the maximum |ȡ|2 decreases with the increase of Pf. Since the increase of plasma
density is almost linear with RF power in this range [2], the observation is likely caused by the non-linear effect of
plasma load on the power reflection coefficient instead of plasma density. Therefore, the maximum possible Pr that
the RF generator would withstand at plasma ignition due to the lagging of capacitor adjustment could be estimated
according to the maximum |ȡ|2, this is useful in the design and development of the RF generator.

FIGURE 6. Change of the maximum power reflection coefficient |ȡ|2 with Pr

Auto-tuning Operation Mode

In the auto-tuning mode, both the Cp and Cs are kept unchanged at the pre-set values during the operation, this is
because: 1) our setup is incapable of on-line adjusting at present; 2) the mechanical adjustment of capacitors is much
slower than the impedance change of the RF antenna at plasma ignition, hence it makes a minor contribution to
restoring the matching condition at plasma ignition. However, in this mode, the operating frequency is adjusted in a
certain range to seek and track the minimum SWR. The pre-set values of the Cp and Cs are found using the estimated
steady RF antenna load with plasma at f = 1 MHz.
In the experiments in auto-tuning mode, the RF generator kept shutting down due to the over-current protection
of the screen grid soon after operating. According to the operating principle of the tetrode, the failures are due to the
proximity of the minimum anode voltage to the screen voltage, i.e. the equivalent anode impedance is much higher
than the design value.
To find out the possible reasons why the equivalent anode impedance increases too much in the auto-tuning
mode, the relationship between the anode impedance and the frequency needs to be studied. In order to simplify the
analysis, the RF transformer in the matching network shown in Fig.4 is considered to be a 3:1 ideal transformer, and
it is assumed that the coupling between RF antenna coil and the plasma current path inside the driver also follows
the ideal transformer principle. Our RF antenna coil is nine windings, so the equivalent plasma impedance at the coil
side should be multiplied by a factor of 2.25 compared to the coil with six windings. The equivalent plasma
resistance and inductance with six windings at 20kW RF power aUHDURXQGȍ and ȝ+UHVSHFWLYHO\UHIHUUHGWR
the results in [7]. As mentioned earlier, the initial impedance of RF antenna load without plasma are Rd = 0.8 ȍDQG
Ld = 16.6 ȝ+, so the estimated steady impedance of RF antenna with plasma at 20kW are Rd = 3.1 ȍ and Ld = 16.3

030049-4
ȝ+. Therefore, the preset capacitors should be Cp = 2833 pF and Cs = 1597 pF to meet optimal matching condition at
1MHz on this steady condition. The strike frequency should be 0.99 MHz to achieve the minimum SWR operation
with the initial RF antenna load, thus the range of the operating frequency should be between 0.99 MHz and 1 MHz.
The effect of the coaxial cable on the tetrode load could be neglected because its length is only two meters in our
setup. The schematic diagram of the anode network is shown in Fig. 7, and the design values of components in the
anode network are list in Table 1. The modulus of the equivalent anode impedance |Zanode| with the frequency is
shown in Fig. 8. If the frequency scanning is too fast before the plasma ignition, the |Zanode| could be much larger
than the design value, e.g. the |Zanode| is ȍ at 1 MHz, which is about 4 times larger than the design value. One
possible solution is to tune the frequency slowly before the plasma ignition.

FIGURE 7. Schematic diagram of the anode network in the tetrode amplifier

TABLE 1. Parameters of the anode network in the tetrode amplifier

Components Value Unit
C1 60 pF
C2 51 nF
C3 683 pF
C4 1545 pF
L1 56 ȝ+
L2 15.9 ȝ+

FIGURE 8. The modulus of the equivalent anode impedance vs the frequency with the initial RF antenna load (Rd ȍDQGLd
ȝ+Cp = 2833 pF and Cs = 1597 pF

030049-5
 CONCLUSIONS
The configurations and operating modes of RF system of the HUST negative ion source experimental setup are
introduced. The RF signal source based on DDS technology could achieve fast frequency tuning, and the tetrode
amplifier could withstand high SWR. In the fixed-frequency mode, the slope of the maximum |ȡ|2 decreases with the
increase of Pf, and this is mainly caused by the non-linear effect of plasma load on the |ȡ|2. In the auto-tuning mode
experiments, the RF generator kept shutting down due to the over-current protection of the screen grid soon after
operating. This is likely due to the large increase in equivalent anode impedance caused by fast tuning of the
operating frequency. One proposed solution is to tune the frequency slowly before the plasma ignition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No.2011GB113003), the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.2015XJGH005), and the Hubei Collaboration
Innovation Center of Non-Power Nuclear Technology. During the development of this experimental setup, we got a
lot of help from IPP, Garching, therefore, we would like to express our gratitude to the stuff at IPP, especially to
Prof. U. Fantz, Dr. P. Franzen and Dr. W. Kraus. The authors are also grateful to all engineers of QEI Corporation in
Williamstown, New Jersey, USA for the development of RF generator, especially to Anthony Oliveti for his
assistance during the commissioning of the RF-driven negative ion source experimental setup in 2014.

REFERENCES
1. B. Heinemann, H. Falter, U. Fantz, P. Franzen, et al., Fusion Engineering and Design 84, 915-922 (2009).
2. X. Li, D. Li, K. Liu, et al., Journal of Fusion Energy 34,1162-1167 (2015).
3. E. Gaio, W. Kraus, C. Martens, R. Piovan, E. Speth, V. Toigo, Fusion Engineering and Design 82, 912-919
(2007).
4. W. Kraus, U. Fantz, B. Heinemann, P. Franzen, Fusion Engineering and Design 91, 16–20 (2015).
5. A. Zamengo, M. Recchia, W. Kraus, et al., Fusion Engineering and Design 84, 2025-2030 (2009).
6. H. Yue, D. Li, P. Zhao, et al., Journal of Fusion Energy 34, 1229-1233 (2015).
7. D. Sudhir, M. Bandyopadhyay, W. Kraus, et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 85, 013510 (2014).

030049-6