Design and construction of multi-port solid state structure for the Rhodotron accelerator

RF generation and method used for coupling power to the acceleration cavity are important issues in the RF accelerators. In this study, a high power vacuum tube was replaced with several medium power solid state amplifiers coupled through a multi-port structure in the Rhodotron-TT200 accelerator. To this end, a multi-port structure was implemented on a small aluminum model cavity for 1 to 9 ports and all main parameters affecting return loss, quality factor, coupling coefficient and RF power were investigated by calculation, simulation and experimental tests. Then, three 20 kW solid state amplifiers were designed and constructed. The outputs of these amplifiers were coupled to the Rhodotron acceleration cavity by three input ports based on the results obtained from the model cavity for generation of 5 MeV electron beam. In this method, several smaller amplifiers were used instead of a single high power amplifier. As such, acceleration cavity plays the role of power combiner in addition to its primary role and there is no need to a high power combiner. The results showed that the number of ports, port positions, angle between ports and phase of input signals, significantly affect the acceleration electrical field in the cavity. Also, experimental tests revealed that three constructed RF power supplies are enough for the generation of 5 MeV electron beam in the Rhodotron accelerator. Considering the advantages of the solid state amplifiers, application of multi-port structure and solid state amplifiers could be expanded in the industrial electron accelerators.