Operating experience with a 30 MeV, 500 μA H− cyclotron

Abstract The prototype of a new design of H − cyclotron for radioisotope production has been built in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). After a brief description of the main design features, the paper describes the beam developments conducted since November 1986. After solving “vacuum runaway” and rf instabilities problems, extracted beam intensities up to 530 μA have been achieved with the prototype. Low power consumption, high energy conversion efficiency, high reliability, automatic operation and low activation level have also been demonstrated on this prototype.