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Conventional dc sources of H- are limited to current densities of the order of 50 mA/cm2 for sources with area larger than a few cm2. Early work at UCI and more recent work at the Lebedev Institute have shown that pulsed magnetical)sy insulated ion diodes can produce current densities larger by factors of the order 10 - 10'±. The large current density and space charge required considerable development of diagnostics for reliable measurements of current density; the methods involve a biased Faraday cup, Etch pit counting on CR-39 film, and nuclear reactions. The diagnostic development was done mainly with a coaxial diode because most of the previous data, particularly from the Lebedev Institute was obtained for this diode design. Since this diode is .not suitable for applications, several other types of magnetically insulated diodes have been developed and studied. For example, the annular and race-track diodes are suitable for an ipn gun. High current densities of H- are obtained only when the cathode plasma is at suitable density and temperature. In previous experiments the plasma was produced by flashover of a dielectric surface driven by the pulse line prepulse. The H- current density was quite sensitive to the magnitude and duration of the prepulse. The prepulse is a property of the machine design about which there is limited control in existing machines. We therefore developed a flash-board plasma source that is placed inside the cathode shank of the APEX generator and can be controlled independently of the pulse line. This paper will present the most recent results with this plasma source, and comparisons with the previous prepulse results.
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