  The LANSCE Isotope Production Facility (IPF) utilizes a 100-MeV proton beam
with average power of 23 kW for isotope production in the fields of medicine,
nuclear physics, national security, environmental science and industry. Typical
tolerable fractional beam loss in the 100-MeV beamline is 4 x10-3. Experimental
beam study was made to minimize the beam losses. Adjustments to the ion source
extraction voltage resulted in the removal of tails in phase space. Beam based
steering in beamlines led to the reduction of beam emittance growth.
Readjustment of the 100-MeV quadrupole transport resulted in the elimination of
excessive beam envelope oscillations and removed significant parts of the beam
halo at the target. Careful beam matching in the drift tube linac (DTL)
provided high beam capture (75%) in the DTL. After improvements, beam losses in
the 100-MeV beamline were reduced by an order of magnitude and reached the
fractional level of 5 x10-4.
