Laser neutralization

Laser photodetachment of the excess electron to neutralize relativistic ions offers many advantages over the more conventional collisional methods using gases or thin foils as the neutralization agents. Probably the two most important advantages of laser photodetachment are the generation of a compact and low divergence beam, and the production of intense neutral beams at very high efficiency (approximately 90%). The high intensities or high current densities of the neutral beam result from the fixed maximum divergence that can be added to the beam by photodetachment of the charge using laser intensity of fixed wavelength and incident angle. The high neutralization efficiency is possible because there is no theoretical maximum to the neutralization efficiency, although higher efficiencies require higher laser powers and, therefore, costs. Additional advantages include focusability of the laser light onto the ion beam to maximize its efficacy. There certainly is no residual gas left in the particle beam path as is typical with gas neutralizers. The photodetachment process leaves the neutral atoms in the ground state so there is no excited state fluorescence to interfere with the subsequent beam sensing. Finally, since the beams to be neutralized are very high powered, for a large range of neutralization efficiencies the neutral beam can be increased more by increasing the power to the laser neutralizer than by adding an equal amount of power to the primary accelerator. 26 figs