Speaker
Description
We will present the design of a compact, highly efficient 9.3 GHz linac with pulse-to-pulse tunable output energy. This linac will produce of up to 500 W of 10 MeV electron beam power for medical and security applications. The novel feature of this linac is its patented traveling wave accelerating structure. This structure combines the benefits of high efficiency with the ability to vary the energy by changing the beam loading specific to the traveling wave cavities. One advantage of this accelerating structure over standing wave structures is that it is broadband and therefore has little power reflected back to the RF source, eliminating the need for a heavy, lossy waveguide insulator. The high shunt impedance will allow the linac to achieve an output energy of up to 10 MeV when powered by a compact commercial 9.3 GHz 1.7 MW magnetron. For pulse-to-pulse tuning of the beam output energy we will change the beam-loaded gradient by varying the linac’s triode gun current. In this talk, we will discuss the physics design, engineering and mechanical design of the linac, and prototype measurements.
