Electron-beam Switches for a High Peak Power Active SLED-II Pulse Compressor

This SBIR project will be devoted to the development and demonstration of high-power X- band switches to operate with the two resonant delay lines of the SLED-II pulse compression system. Each switch is triggered with an intense electron beam drawn from a diamond-coated molybdenum cold cathode. Preliminary tests of prototype X-band switches using the Omega- P/NRL X-band magnicon have already shown record power gain and peak power values for an active pulse compressor, namely a gain of 18:1, and a peak power of 165 MW in ~ 20 ns pulses. The overall goal of the proposed SBIR project will be to extend these preliminary results and install on the SLAC SLED-II delay lines two switches capable of producing 100 ns flat-top pulses with peak power gains of 20:1. This would allow a 2 s, 50 MW pulse from a single SLAC X-band klystron to be compressed to a peak power of 1 GW in a 100 ns pulse, assuming an efficiency of 50%. This would extend SLAC capability for high-power testing of structures and components well beyond its current limits, and with need for only a single X-band klystron as the RF source. During Phase I, it is planned to carry out engineering design for the switches and high-voltage pulsed power supplies needed to match SLAC SLED-II parameters, and to conduct low power cold tests. During Phase II, high-power versions of the switches would be built, installed at SLAC, and tested. The Phase II portion of the work would be on a collaborative basis with a SLAC team headed by Professor Sami Tantawi.