Design of an in-vacuum manipulator for nuclear diagnostics development at the MIT linear electrostatic ion accelerator

An ultrahigh vacuum compatible manipulator known as the Diagnostic Manipulating Element (DiME) has been developed for the MIT Linear Electrostatic Ion Accelerator (LEIA) facility. The system was designed to reduce the resources dedicated toward the calibration process for step-range filters CR-39 based proton spectrometers used in inertial confinement fusion experiments at the Lawrence Livermore National Ignition Facility and the University of Rochester’s OMEGA Laser Facility. To accurately account for variations in nominal filter thicknesses when analyzing experimental data, the spectrometers are calibrated at the MIT LEIA facility prior to use at other facilities. The system supports rapid prototyping and can reduce the time necessary for spectrometer calibration by 50%. The modular design of the DiME is described in this article to facilitate the implementation of similar design methods at other facilities focused on the development of nuclear fusion technologies.