Recent Activities of Negative Ion Based NBI System on JT-60U

The pulse duration of the negative ion based NBI system has been extended from 10 s to 25 s to study long pulse plasmas on JT-60U. A feedback control technique has been demonstrated to keep the arc power constant by controlling the filament voltage for long pulse operation. Thus it was clearly observed that the negative ion beam current increased with the temperature of the plasma grid at constant arc power. A tapered filament is employed to improve its durability for the next operational campaign. Moreover, a high voltage holding test indicates that the reduction in the outgassing from the FRP (fiberglass-reinforced plastic) insulator may be a key to suppress the breakdowns in the ion source