Fast switching (< 10 nsec) measurement results on the recently developed
BST(M) (barium strontium titanium oxide composition with magnesium-based
additions) ferroelectric materials are presented. These materials can be used
as the basis for new advanced technology components suitable for high-gradient
accelerators. A ferroelectric ceramic has an electric field-dependent
dielectric permittivity that can be altered by applying a bias voltage.
Ferroelectric materials offer significant benefits for linear collider
applications, in particular, for switching and control elements where a very
short response time of <10 nsec is required. The measurement results presented
here show that the new BST(M) ceramic exhibits a high tunability factor: a bias
field of 40-50 kV/cm reduces the permittivity by a factor of 1.3-1.5. The
recently developed technology of gold biasing contact deposition on large
diameter (110 cm) thin wall ferroelectric rings allowed ~few nsec switching
times in witness sample experiments. The ferroelectric rings can be used at
high pulsed power (tens of megawatts) for X-band components as well as at high
average power in the range of a few kilowatts for the L-band phase-shifter,
under development for optimization of the ILC rf coupling. Accelerator
applications include fast active X-band and Ka-band high-power ferroelectric
switches, high-power X-band and L-band phase shifters, and tunable
dielectric-loaded accelerating structures.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Proceedings of 2006 Advanced
Accelerator Concepts Worksho