The aim of LIPAc is to validate the engineering design of a future DONES neutron source that will soon be built in Granada

Last June, a deuteron accelerator, designed and operated under an international framework reached a 125-mA current. This is the highest intensity reached by a linear accelerator. The device is LIPAc (Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator), the aim of which is to validate the engineering design of a future DONES neutron source (DEMO Oriented Neutron Source) that will soon be built in Escúzar (Granada, Spain).

LIPAc also holds another world record: it has the longest RFQ (Radio-Frequency Quadrupole) in operation, a guiding and acceleration system of charged particles capable of providing particles an intense beam of 125-mA at 5 MeV.

Reaching such a high current is a huge success and it ensures the feasibility of the project drawn up for the construction of DONES.

LIPAc, still at its commissioning phase, is in Rokkasho (Japan), and it has been designed and constructed under the EU-JA Bilateral Agreement for the Broader Approach for Fusion. Participants in this project are, on the one hand, Fusion for Energy, who coordinates the intervention of European laboratories, Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA, France), Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT, Spain), and, on the other hand, National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology (QST, Japan).

Photographs: 1. Complete set up of LIPAc (above), and current set up for phase B (5 MeV). 2. Members of F4E, QST, CEA, INFN and CIEMAT standing next to LIPAc (in the background) during the commissioning phase of the accelerator. 3. Vacuum tests in Rokkasho conducted by experts from CIEMAT on some components of the accelerator.