Development of a dielectric-loaded test accelerator

This paper presents a progress report on a joint project by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), in collaboration with the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and Euclid Techlabs, LLC, to develop an X-band dielectric-loaded test accelerator in the NRL Magnicon Facility. The magnicon is a high-power 11.4-GHz amplifier tube that can produce up to 25 MW of power in 200-ns pulses at up to 10 Hz. The dielectric accelerating structures are developed by ANL and Euclid Techlabs, and tested at NRL and SLAC. The accelerator will include a 5-MeV electron injector developed by the Accelerator Laboratory of Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. SLAC has develped a means to combine the two magnicon output arms, in order to drive an injector and accelerator with separate control of the power ratio and relative phase. The initial operation of the injector should take place later this year, and the first test with a DLA structure, and a spectrometer should take place within the next year.