Study of Gasdynamic Electron Cyclotron Resonance Plasma Vacuum Ultraviolet Emission to Optimize Negative Hydrogen Ion Production Efficiency

Negative hydrogen ion sources are used as injectors into accelerators and drive the neutral beam heating in ITER. Certain processes in low-temperature hydrogen plasmas are accompanied by the emission of vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) emission. Studying the VUV radiation therefore provides volumetric rates of plasma-chemical processes and plasma parameters. In the past we have used gasdynamic ECR discharge for volumetric negative ion production and investigated the dependencies between the extracted H$^-$ current density and various ion source parameters. It was shown that it is possible to reach up to 80 mA/cm$^2$ of negative ion current density with a two electrode extraction. We report experime…