Lithium pellet production (LiPP): a device for the production of small spheres of lithium

With lithium as a fusion material gaining popularity, a method for producing lithium pellets relatively quickly has been developed for NSTX. The Lithium Pellet Production device is based on an injector with a sub-millimeter diameter orifice and relies on a jet of liquid lithium breaking apart into small spheres via the Plateau-Rayleigh instability. A prototype device is presented in this paper and for a pressure difference of ΔP = 5 Torr, spheres with diameters between 0.91 < D < 1.37 mm have been produced with an average diameter of D = 1.14 mm, which agrees with the developed theory. Successive tests performed at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory with Wood's metal have confirmed the dependence of sphere diameter on pressure difference as predicted.

Off-line ionization tests using the surface and the plasma ion sources of the SPES project

The development of new target ion source systems for the selective production of exotic species (SPES) facility is currently in progress at Legnaro National Laboratories. In this context, the study of ion sources and their performance in terms of ionization efficiency and transversal emittance is a crucial point in order to maximize the available yields, particularly for short-lived isotopes. In this work, preliminary off-line ionization efficiency and emittance measurements for the SPES surface and plasma ion sources are presented. The plasma source emittance measurements are supported by dedicated numerical calculations.