An internal laser communication system for large single-ended electrostatic accelerators

Abstract The electronics, power supplies, and other devices that produce positive ions (the Ion source) inside all single-ended electrostatic accelerators are not reachable, both because of the very high voltage at which they sit (Millions of volts), and because the whole accelerator is inside a high-pressure vessel. So, it must be operated remotely. In this work, a home-made system driven by small sources and detectors is presented. This system has been tested to work inside the 5.5 MV CN-Van de Graaff accelerator in Mexico, at around 8 bar (115 psi) pressure of the isolating gas (N 2 +CO 2 ). In the assembled laser system, voltage readings are taken from the variacs that control the following sources that composed the ion source: Source Focus, Probe, Source Magnet, Gas Control, Extractor and Tube Focus.