An automated 476 MHz RF cavity processing facility at SLAC

The 476 MHz accelerating cavities currently used at SLAC are those installed on the PEP-II B-Factory collider accelerator. They are designed to operate at a maximum accelerating voltage of 1 MV and are routinely utilized on PEP-II at voltages up to 750 kV. During the summer of 2003, SPEAR will undergo a substantial upgrade, part of which will be to replace the existing 358.54 MHz RF system with essentially a PEP-II high energy ring (HER) RF station operating at 476.3 MHz and 3.2 MV (or 800 kV/cavity). Prior to installation, cavity RF processing is required to prepare them for use. A dedicated high power test facility is employed at SLAC to provide the capability of conditioning each cavity up to the required accelerating voltage. An automated LabVIEW based interface controls and monitors various cavity and test stand parameters, increasing the RF fields accordingly such that stable operation is finally achieved. This paper describes the high power RF cavity processing facility, highlighting the features of the automated control system and illustrating its operation with some recent high power processing results.