Overview of CW electron guns and LCLS-II RF gun performance

Various continuous-wave (CW) electron gun technologies are reviewed, including DC, superconducting radio frequency RF (SRF), hybrid DC-SRF and normal-conducting RF. Also, the SLAC Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II) normal-conducting RF gun and injector are described, and the performance to date, including the bunch emittance achieved and the dark current observed, is presented

Emittance Compensation for SRF Photoinjectors

The advantages of contemporary particle injectors are high bunch charges and good beam quality in the case of normal conducting RF guns and increased repetition rates in the one of DC injectors. The technological edge of the concept of superconducting radio frequency injectors is to combine the strengths of both these sides. As many future accelerator concepts, such as energy recovery linacs, high power free electron lasers and certain collider designs, demand particle sources with high bunch charges and high repetition rates combined, applying the superconductivity of the accelerator modules to the injector itself is the next logical step. However, emittance compensation — the cornerstone for high beam quality — in case of a superconducting injector is much more challenging than in the normal conducting one. The use of simple electromagnets generating a solenoid field around the gun’s resonator interferes with its superconducting state. Hence, it requires novel and sophisticated techniques to maintain the high energy gain inside the gun cavity, while at the same time alleviating the detrimental fast transverse emittance growth of the bunch. In the case of the ELBE accelerator at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, a superconducting electron accelerator provides beam for several independent beamlines in continuous wave mode. The applications include IR to THz free electron lasers, neutron and positron generation, to Thompson backscattering with an inhouse TW laser, and hence, call for a flexible CW injector. Therefore, the development of a 3.5 cell superconducting electron gun was initiated in 1997. The focus of this thesis lies on three approaches of transverse emittance compensation for this photoinjector: RF focusing, the installation of a superconducting solenoid close to the cavity’s exit, and the introduction of a transverse electrical mode of the RF field in the resonator. All three methods are described in theory, examined by numerical simulation, and experimentally reviewed in the particular case of the ELBE SRF Gun II at HZDR and a copy of its niobium resonator at Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory, Newport News, VA, USA

Optimization of an SRF Gun for High Bunch Charge Applications at ELBE

As a cutting-edge technology for photoinjectors, SRF guns are expected to provide CW electron beams with high bunch charge and low emittance, which is critical to the development of future FELs, ERLs and 4th/5th generation light sources. However, existing research has not explored the full potential of SRF guns as predicted by theory. Currently, the research activities at ELBE focus on solving technological challenges of a 3.5 cell SRF gun as well as applying it to high-bunch-charge experiments. This thesis aims to optimize the ELBE SRF gun and the relevant beam transport for future high-bunch-charge applications at pELBE, nELBE, TELBE and CBS experimental stations. Chapter 1 describes the demands of these applications on the SRF gun in detail. Chapter 2 outlines the development of a simulation tool based on ASTRA and Elegant, followed by the optimized gun parameters and the beam transport for the four experimental stations. Chapter 3 introduces beam diagnostic methods and data processing applied in this thesis. Chapter 4 presents results of experiments, including the pulse length measurement of the UV laser for generating electrons from the photcathode, the commissioning of ELBE SRF Gun II, a verification experiment on the LSC effect conducted at PITZ and a beam transport experiment with the bunch charge of 200 pC. Simulation results have determined the effect of each SRF gun parameter on the beam quality and have provided optimized settings according to the requirements in Chapter 1. Experimentally, the LSC effect was confirmed at PITZ, in agreement with simulations which indicated that LSC significantly influences beam quality. The performance of ELBE SRF Gun II was improved and a beam with a bunch charge of 200 pC and an emittance of 7.7 μm from ELBE SRF Gun II has been transported through ELBE without visible beam loss. The development of the simulation tool and beam diagnostics will serve further research at ELBE. Results of both simulations and experiments enrich the understanding of the existing SRF gun as well as the ELBE beamline and will guide continuing improvements. Already, ELBE SRF Gun II can deliver twice the bunch charge and lower emittance compared to the thermionic injector routinely used for ELBE. Ongoing modifications and development of the gun-cavity and photocathodes are expected to provide still further improvements. Progress on high-bunch-charge experiments at ELBE can be expected by applying the SRF gun

Surface Impedance of Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) Materials

Superconducting radio frequency (SRF) technology is widely adopted in particle accelerators. There remain many open questions, however, in developing a systematic understanding of the fundamental behavior of SRF materials, including niobium treated in different ways and various other bulk/thin film materials that are fabricated with different methods under assorted conditions. A facility that can measure the SRF properties of small samples in a range of 2∼40 K temperature is needed in order to fully answer these questions. The Jefferson Lab surface impedance characterization (SIC) system has been designed to attempt to meet this requirement. It consists of a sapphire-loaded cylindrical Nb TE011 cavity at 7.4 GHz with a 50 mm diameter flat sample placed on a non-contacting end plate and uses a calorimetric technique to measure the radio frequency (RF) induced heat on the sample. Driving the resonance to a known field on this surface enables one to derive the surface resistance of a relatively small localized area. TE011 mode identification has been done at room temperature and 4 K, and has been compared with Microwave StudioRTM and SuperFish simulation results. RF loss mechanisms in the SIC system are under investigation. A VCO phase lock loop system has been used in both CW and pulsed mode. Two calorimeters, with stainless steel and Cu as the thermal path material for high precision and high power versions, respectively, have been designed and commissioned for the SIC system to provide low temperature control and measurement. A power compensation method has been developed to measure the RF induced power on the sample. Simulation and experimental results show that with these two calorimeters, the whole thermal range of interest for SRF materials has been covered, The power measurement error in the interested power range is within 1.2% and 2.7% for the high precision and high power versions, respectively. Temperature distributions on the sample surface for both versions have been simulated and the accuracy of sample temperature measurements have been analysed. Both versions have the ability to accept bulk superconductors and thin film superconducting samples with a variety of substrate materials such as Al, A12O3, Cu, MgO, Nb and Si. Tests with polycrystalline and large grain bulk Nb samples have been done at impedance, least-squares fittings have been done using SuperFit2.0, a code developed by G. Ciovati and the author.;Microstructure analyses and SRF measurements of large scale epitaxial MgB2 films have been reported. MgB2 films on 5 cm dia. sapphire disks were fabricated by a Hybrid Physical Chemical Vapor Deposition (HPCVD) technique. The electron-beam backscattering diffraction (EBSD) results suggest that the film is a single crystal complying with a MgB2(0001)//A1 2O3(0001) epitaxial relationship. The SRF properties of different film thicknesses (200 nm and 350 nm) were evaluated using SIC system under different temperatures and applied fields at 7.4 GHz. A surface resistance of 9+/-2 muO has been observed at 2.2 K.;Based on BCS theory with moving Cooper pairs, the electron states distribution at 0K and the probability of electron occupation with finite temperature have been derived and applied to anomalous skin effect theory to obtain the surface impedance of a superconductor with moving Cooper pairs. We present the numerical results for Nb