[en] The study described in this report1 models the FXR injector from the cathode to the exit of the injector. The calculations are compared to actual experimental measurements, table 1. In these measurements the anode voltage was varied by changing the Marks-Bank charging voltage. The anode-cathode spacing was varied by adjusting the location of the cathode in hopes of finding an island of minimum emittance (none found). The bucking coil current was set for zero field on the cathode. In these measurements, a pepper-pot mask was inserted into FXR at beam bug 135 and viewed downstream via a wiggle probe diagnostic at cell gap J21, figure 1. The observed expansion of the beamlets passing through the mask of known geometric layout and hole size allow a calculation of the phase space beam properties

[en] An investigation is being made into the feasibility of making a compact proton dielectric wall (DWA) accelerator for medical radiation treatment based on the high gradient insulation (HGI) technology. A small plasma device is used for the proton source. Using only electric focusing fields for transporting and focusing the beam on the patient, the compact DWA proton accelerator m system can deliver wide and independent variable ranges of beam currents, energies and spot sizes

[en] We measured the beam emittance at the ETAII accelerator using a pepper-pot diagnostic at nominal parameters of 6 MeV and 2000 Amperes. During the coarse of these experiments, a ''new tune'' was introduced which significantly improved the beam quality. The source of a background pedestal was investigated and eliminated. The measured ''new tune'' emittance is (var_epsilon)= 8.05 (plus_minus) 0. 53 cm - mr or a normalized emittance of (var_epsilon)_n = 943 (plus_minus) 63 mm - mr In 1990 the ETAII programmatic emphasis was on free electron lasers and the paramount parameter was whole beam brightness. The published brightness for ETAII after its first major rebuild was J = 1 - 3 x 10⁸ A/(m - rad)² at a current and energy of 1000-1400 Amperes and 2.5 MeV. The average normalized emittance derived from table 2 of that report is 864 mm-mr corresponding to a real emittance of 14.8 cm-mr

[en] This paper describes the mechanical design of the downstream beam transport line for the second axis of the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT II) Facility. The DARHT-II project is a collaboration between LANL, LBNL and LLNL. DARHT II is a 18.4-MeV, 2000-Amperes, 2-(micro)sec linear induction accelerator designed to generate short bursts of x-rays for the purpose of radiographing dense objects. The downstream beam transport line is approximately 22-meter long region extending from the end of the accelerator to the bremsstrahlung target. Within this proposed transport line there are 12 conventional solenoid, quadrupole and dipole magnets; as well as several specialty magnets, which transport and focus the beam to the target and to the beam dumps. There are two high power beam dumps, which are designed to absorb 80-kJ per pulse during accelerator start-up and operation. Aspects of the mechanical design of these elements are presented

[en] The accelerator on the second-axis of the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT-II) facility will generate a 20 MeV, 2-4 kA, 2 s long electron beam with an energy variation ≤ 0.5%. Four short current pulses with various lengths will be selected out of this 2 s long current pulse and delivered to an x-ray converter target. The DARHT-II radiographic resolution requires these electron pulses to be focused to sub-millimeter spots on Bremsstrahlung targets with peak-to-peak transverse beam motion less than a few hundred microns. We have modeled the transverse beam motion, including the beam breakup instability, corkscrew motion, transverse resistive wall instability and beam induced transverse deflection in the kicker system, from the DARHT-II injector exit to the x-ray converter target. Simulations show that the transverse motion at the x-ray converters satisfies the DARHT-II radiographic requirements

[en] The injector of the Flash X-Ray (FXR) accelerator has a significantly larger than expected beam emittance. A computer modeling effort involving three different injector design codes was undertaken to characterize the FXR injector and determine the cause of the large emittance. There were some variations between the codes, but in general the simulations were consistent and pointed towards a much smaller normalized, rms emittance (36 cm-mr) than what was measured (193 cm-mr) at the exit of the injector using a pepperpot technique. The simulations also indicated that the present diode design was robust with respect to perturbations to the nominal design. Easily detected mechanical alignment/position errors and magnet errors did not lead to appreciable increase in the simulated emittance. The physics of electron emission was not modeled by any of the codes and could be the source of increased emittance. The nominal simulation assumed uniform Child-Langmuir Law emission from the velvet cathode and no shroud emission. Simulations that looked at extreme non-uniform cathode and shroud emission scenarios resulted in doubling of the emittance. An alternative approach was to question the pepperpot measurement. Simulations of the measurement showed that the pepperpot aperture foil could double the emittance with respect to the non-disturbed beam. This leads to a diplomatic explanation of the discrepancy between predicted and measured emittance where the fault is shared. The measured value is too high due to the effect of the diagnostic on the beam and the simulations are too low because of unaccounted cathode and/or shroud emission physics. Fortunately there is a relatively simple experiment that can resolve the emittance discrepancy. If the large measured emittance value is correct, the beam envelope is emittance dominated at modest values of focusing field and beam radius. Measurements of the beam envelope on an imaging foil at the exit of the injector would lead to an accurate value of the emittance. If the emittance was approximately half of the measured value, the beam envelope is slightly space charge dominated, but envelope measurements would set reasonable bounds on the emittance value. For an emittance much less than 100 cm-mr, the envelope measurements would be insensitive to emittance. The outcome of this envelope experiment determines if a redesigned diode is needed or if more sophisticated emittance measurements should be pursued

[en] To produce four short x-ray pulses for radiography, the second-axis of the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test facility (DARHT-II) will use a fast kicker to select current pulses out of the 2-ms duration beam provided by the accelerator. Beam motion during the kicker voltage switching could lead to dilution of the time integrated beam spot and make the spot elliptical. A large elliptical x-ray source produced by those beams would degrade the resolution and make radiographic analysis difficult. We have developed a tuning strategy to eliminate the spot size dilution, and tested the strategy successfully on ETA-II with the DARHT-II kicker hardware

[en] This paper describes the mechanical design of the downstream beam transport line for the second axis of the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT II) facility. The DARHT II project is a collaboration between LANL, LBNL, and LLNL. DARHT II is a 20-MeV, 2000-Amperes, 2-ampersand micro;sec pulse length linear induction accelerator designed to generate short bursts of x-rays for the purpose of radiographing dense objects. The downstream beam transport line is an 18-meter long region extending from the end of the accelerator to the bremsstrahlung target. Within this proposed transport line there are 17 conventional solenoid, quadrupole and dipole magnets; as well as several specialty magnets, which transport and focus the beam to the target and beam dumps. There is a high power beam dump, which is designed to absorb the 80-kJ of beam energy during accelerator start-up and operation. The beamline vacuum chamber has an 8-cm diameter aperture and operates at an average pressure of 10^-7 Torr

[en] Previous studies of the Advanced Test Accelerator inrjector using the low density plasma cathode (flashboard cathode) have shown that the brightness of the injector was being limited by the non-uniform emission of the cathode surface. To avoid this difficulty, the cathode-anode geometry was rearranged to accommodate field shaping surfaces and a field emission cathode. Tests of the field emission cathodes have shown that by using velvet cathodes, the brightness is improved by a factor of ten as compared to the plasma board cathodes. The uniformity of the beam has also been improved both spatially and temporally and the cathodes are found to be very repeatable on a shot-to-shot basis

[en] During normal DARHT II operation, the beam exiting the accelerator will be well characterized by its nominal design parameters of 20-MeV, 2000-Amperes, 2-microsec-pulse length, and 3 cm-mr unnormalized emittance. Normal operation will have the beam delivered to a beam dump via several DC magnets. A 2-way kicker magnet is used to deflect portions of the beam into the straight ahead beamline leading to either a diagnostic beamline or to the converter target beamline. During start up and or beam development periods, the beam exiting the accelerator may have parameters outside the acceptable range of values for normal operation. The Enge beamline must accommodate this range of unacceptable beam parameters, delivering the entire 80 KiloJoule of beam to the dump even though the energy, emittance, and/or match is outside the nominal design range