A superconducting RF deflecting cavity for the ARIEL e-linac separator

Date

2018-03-13

Authors

Storey, Douglas W.

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Abstract

The ARIEL electron linac is a 0.3MW accelerator that will drive the production of rare isotopes in TRIUMF's new ARIEL facility. A planned upgrade will allow a second beam to be accelerated in the linac simultaneously, driving a Free Electron Laser while operating as an energy recovery linac. To not disrupt beam delivery to the ARIEL facility, an RF beam separator is required to separate the interleaved beams after they exit the accelerating cavities. A 650MHz superconducting RF deflecting mode cavity has been designed, built, and tested for providing the required 0.3MV transverse deflecting voltage to separate the interleaved beams. The cavity operates in a TE-like mode, and has been optimized through the use of simulation tools for high shunt impedance with minimal longitudinal footprint. The design process and details about the resulting electromagnetic and mechanical design are presented, covering the cavity's RF performance, coupling to the operating and higher order modes, multipacting susceptibility, and the physical design. The low power dissipation on the cavity walls at the required deflecting field allows for the cavity to be fabricated using non-conventional techniques. These include fabricating from bulk, low purity niobium and the use of TIG welding for joining the cavity parts. A method for TIG welding niobium is developed that achieves minimal degradation in purity of the weld joint while using widely available fabrication equipment. Applying these methods to the fabrication of the separator cavity makes this the first SRF cavity to be built at TRIUMF. The results of cryogenic RF tests of the separator cavity at temperatures down to 2K are presented. At the operating temperature of 4.2K, the cavity achieves a quality factor of 4e8 at the design deflecting voltage of 0.3MV. A maximum deflecting voltage of 0.82MV is reached at 4.2K, with peak surface fields of 26MV/m and 33mT. The cavity's performance exceeds the goal deflecting voltage and quality factor required for operation.

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Keywords

Accelerator Physics, Superconducting RF, RF Cavity

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