LASER BEAM PROFILE MONITOR DEVELOPMENT AT BNL FOR SNS.

A beam profile monitor for H{sup -} beams using laser photoneutralization is being developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory [1] for use on the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) [2]. An H{sup -} ion has a first ionization potential of 0.75eV and can be neutralized by light from a Nd:YAG laser ({lambda}=1064nm). To measure beam profiles, a narrow laser beam is passed through the ion beam neutralizing a portion of the H{sup -} beam struck by the laser, and the perturbation of the beam current caused by the laser is measured. The laser trajectory is stepped across the ion beam generating a transverse profile. Proof-of-principle experiments were done at 750keV and 200MeV. Also a compact scanner prototype was used at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) [3] during commissioning of the SNS RFQ.