Excitement time in the lab! Last Friday, we achieved a new milestone with the successful generation of the first plasma on MINION.
In the images: the experiment before ignition, a view of the first plasma, the emission spectroscopy (the two highest peaks being the so-called Halpha and Hbeta lines, luminous emission lines that are characteristic of hydrogen) and preparatory moments before the start.
MINION is an experiment dedicated to testing the modifications introduced on SPIDER. It aims to verify whether improved plasma confinement can lead to higher plasma density, enabling the generation of a greater number of negative ions.
Additionally, an enhancement of SPIDER’s optics will be implemented, resulting from the reduction of perpendicular energy of negative ions.
MINION serves as a test facility to enhance the performance of the world’s most powerful negative ion source.
The upcoming weeks will be devoted to investigating plasma parameters obtained on MINION in various configurations.