Preliminary results of a miniature cylindrical inertial electrostatic confinement fusion device equipped with inductively coupled plasma generator

In this paper a cylindrical neutron generator based on inertial electrostatic confinement is designed and constructed. This miniature sized linear neutron generator is equipped with an inductively coupled plasma generator as the pre-ionization system. The preliminary neutron counting results by a 3He detector indicated linear correlation between the discharge current and Neutron Production Rate (NPR) at fixed voltages. The pre-ionization helps to increase the discharge current at fixed pressures therefore the charge exchange reactions does not increase by this method. Primary results represent NPR of 105 n/s at −40 kV cathode voltage that could be increased between 107 to 108 n/s by increment of this voltage up to −80 kV and cathode cooling considerations.