FIRST STEPS TOWARD LASER STRIPPING IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

Thin carbon foils are used as strippers for charge exchange injection into high intensity proton rings. However, the stripping foils become radioactive and produce uncontrolled beam loss, which is one of the main factors limiting beam power in high intensity proton rings. Recently, the first laser-assisted high efficiency conversion of H- beam into protons was successfully demonstrated for a short laser pulse at Spallation Neutron Source project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The next step will be to build a stripping device to make 1-10 microsecond pulses stripping. The associated problems and possible solutions for projects with large ranges of H- beam energies are described.