Microwave Thermionic Electron Gun for Synchrotron Light Sources

Conventional thermionic RF guns can offer high average beam current, which is important for synchrotron light sources facilities as well as industrial radiography. This project has developed a high- reliability, high-current thermionic gun suitable for industrial radiography and synchrotron light sources, but commercial, and therefore technical success, is hindered by the lack of a fully-engineered system to power and deliver the needed electron beams. In response to this problem, we have designed and built a more stable and reliable gun with optimized electromagnetic performance, improved thermal engineering and more robust cathode mounting technique, which is a critical step to improve the performance of existing and future light sources and industrial accelerators. The RF gun will be integrated into a turnkey system for both research and industrial applications by adapting and integrating our existing catalog items as guided by thorough beam physics simulations. In Phase IIB we cost-optimized our RF gun towards a market-ready, stand-alone product. In particular, we developed a simplified design, focused around a non-removable back plane to reduce cost and complexity, eliminating over 50 components in the process. Further design modifications incorporated improvements to the locating mechanics for the cathode stalk, which in the past was extremely sensitive to misalignment, to ensure that it can be reliably centered for long-term operation. We will extend our RF gun component into a full turnkey system for industrial radiography as well as a light source driver. We will develop and demonstrate a deployable compact side-emission X-ray source consisting of a compact permanent magnet dipole and target, the developed RF gun, and a high-power magnetron RF source. The synchrotron injector will be designed to include a pulse compressor alpha- magnet, momentum filter, and an intermediate matching beamline. The goal of this project is to build a system that can be immediately useful to new synchrotron facilities and other high-performance accelerator facilities. The proposed industrial system has great commercial potential in in-factory and in-situ turbine rotor inspection, in-situ nuclear power plant inspection, and other space-constrained industrial radiography applications; evidence of this is shown in our securing of matching funds from a third party.