DESIGN OF A HIGH CURRENT, FAST RISE TIME KICKER MAGNET POWERSUPPLY USING A BACK LIGHTED THYRATRON

HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS ACCELERATE PARTICLE BUNCHES TO RELATIVISTIC VELOCITIES AND THEN CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF THE PARTICLE BUNCH TRAJECTORIES IN A PRECISE MANNER TO CAUSETHE PARTICLES TO INTERACT WITH THE TARGET OF INTEREST. KICKER SYSTEMS THAT GENERATE PULSED MAGNETIC FIELDS WITHIN THE BEAM TRAJECTORY COMMONLY ARE USED TO CHANGE THE PARTICLEBUNCH TRAJECTORIES IN A PRECISE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL MANNER. THE TECHNOLOGY COMMONLY USED TO GENERATE THE PULSEDMAGNETIC FIELD IS LIMITED BY AVAILABLE SWITCH TUBE TECHNOLOGY. THUS, MULTIPLE KICKER SYSTEMS TYPICALLY ARE USED IN SERIES TO OBTAIN SUFFICIENT BEAM DEFLECTION. PHASE I WILL INVESTIGATE THE PERFORMANCE OF A BACK-LIGHTED THYRATRON (BLT) IN A LOW IMPEDANCE KICKER MAGNET PULSE POWERSYSTEM, AND ATTEMPT TO EXTEND THE PEAK KICKER MAGNETIC FIELDS AND REDUCE KICKER FIELD RISE TIMES PRESENTLY AVAILABLE BY UP TO AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE. IN ADDITION, THE USE OF BLTS SHOULD EXTEND SWITCH TUBE LIFETIME AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE BECAUSE THE BLT DOES NOT HAVE AN EXTERNALLY HEATEDTHERMIONIC CATHODE AND USES ONLY VERY RUGGED TRANSITION METAL ELECTRODES. THE COMBINATION OF IMPROVED BLT PERFORMANCE AND INCREASED LIFETIME HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GREATLY REDUCE THE COMPLEXITY, INITIAL COST, AND OPERATING COST WHILE IMPROVING PERFORMANCE OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS KICKER MAGNET PULSE POWER SYSTEMS.