An engineering overview of an electrostatic quadrupole lattice for a high current transport experiment

The Heavy Ion Fusion Virtual National Laboratory is building a High Current Experiment (HCX) to explore the transport of a heavy-ion beam at a scale appropriate to the low-energy end of a driver for heavy ion fusion. The HCX is presently being designed and assembled in multiple stages at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The scientific motivation for the HCX is presented in a related paper. We overview the engineering design of an early phase of the HCX involving the transport of a 1.7 MeV, 0.7 Amp K/sup +/ beam through a lattice of alternating gradient electrostatic quadrupoles (ESQs). Four tanks of 10 quadrupoles each are ultimately planned, corresponding to 20 periods of ESQ transport. Mechanical, high-voltage, and vacuum engineering aspects of the ESQ transport lattice are presented.