Magnetron Discharge Characteristics for Improvement of an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Neutron/Proton Source

A magnetron discharge was adopted in the inertial-electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion device for drastic improvement of fusion reaction rate. With this discharge in the vicinity of the vacuum chamber, a substantial number of ions produced there are expected to have almost full energy corresponding to the applied voltage to the transparent IEC cathode under relatively low pressures compared with the conventional glow discharge. The magnetron discharge is found to occur even for the pressure of 0.07 mTorr (H₂) in the present configuration of the experiment, compared with 5 mTorr in the glow discharge.