Formation of an intense proton beam of microsecond duration

The proton beam facility PROFA serves as a test installation for ion source development and beam transport optimization for an intense pulsed proton beam of low kinetic energy, envisaged for ITER divertor load simulation. We discuss the present state of the investigations with the emphasis on diode operation parameters, beam divergence and beam transport efficiency. Companion papers to this conference [1, 2] describe details of beam composition and space charge neutralization studies.