LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
Small, lightweight, few-MeV electron accelerators that can operate with low-voltage power sources, e.g., solid-state transistors running on 50 VDC, instead of high-voltage klystrons, will provide a new tool to enhance existing applications of accelerators as well as to initiate new ones. Recent advances in gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technologies * have resulted in a new class of high-power RF solid-state devices called high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). These HEMTs are capable of generating a few hundred watts at S-, C- and X-bands at 10% duty factor. We have characterized a number of GaN HEMTs and verified they have suitable RF characteristics to power accelerator cavities **. We have measured energy gain as a function of RF power in a single low-beta C-band cavity. The HEMT powered RF accelerators will be compact and efficient, and they can operate off the low-voltage DC power buses or batteries. These all-solid-state accelerators are also more robust, less likely to fail, and are easier to maintain and operate. In this poster, we present the design of a low-beta, 5.1-GHz cavity and beam dynamics simulations showing continuous energy gain in a ten-cavity C-band prototype.
* See for example, http://www.wolfspeed.com/downloads/dl/file/id/463/product/174/cghv59350.pdf
** J.W. Lewellen et al., Proceedings of LINAC2016, Paper MO3A03
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
MIT/PSFC, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
INFN/LNF, Frascati (Roma), Italy
We will preliminary testing results for single-cell accelerating structures intended for high-gradient testing at 110 GHz. The purpose of this work is to study the basic physics of ultrahigh vacuum RF breakdown in high-gradient RF accelerators. The accelerating structures consist of pi-mode standing-wave cavities fed with TM01 circular waveguide mode. We fabricated of two structures one in copper and the other in CuAg alloy. Cold RF tests confirm the design RF performance of the structures. The geometry and field shape of these accelerating structures is as close as practical to single-cell standing-wave X-band accelerating structures more than 40 of which were tested at SLAC. This wealth of X-band data will serve as a baseline for these 110 GHz tests. The structures will be powered with a MW gyrotron oscillator that produces microsecond pulses. One megawatt of RF power from the gyrotron may allow us to reach a peak accelerating gradient of 400 MeV/m.
LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, USA
Los Alamos National Laboratory, in collaboration with SLAC and Goddard Space Flight Center, have begun developing a high-duty-factor, MeV-range linear accelerator intended for use on satellites, specifically to probe the magnetosphere-ionosphere linkage. The design makes use of low-beta C-band cavities operating at moderate gradients, individually powered by 500-W RF amplifier chips. We present the current state of the design, and technology maturation efforts including RF amplifier performance studies, cavity tuner design and an initial acceleration test using a DC beam source and single RF cavity.