Design and fabrication of a continuous wave electron accelerating structure

The Physics Institute of Sao Paulo University, SP, Brazil is fabricating a 31 MeV cw racetrack microtron (RTM) designed for nuclear physics research. This is a two-stage microtron that includes a 1.93 MeV injector linac feeding a five-turn microtron booster. After 28 turns, the main microtron delivers a 31 MeV continuous electron beam. The objective of this work is the development and fabrication of an advanced, beta=l, cw accelerating structure for the main microtron. The accelerating structure will be a side-coupled structure (SCS). We have chosen this kind of cavity, because it presents good vacuum properties, allows operation at higher accelerating electric fields and has a shunt impedance better than 81 MQ/m, with a high coupling factor ( 3 - 5%). The engineering design is the Los Alamos one. There will be two tuning plungers placed at both ends of the accelerating structure. They automatically and quickly compensate for the variation in the resonance frequency caused by changes in the structure temperature. Our design represents an advanced accelerating structure with the optimum SCS properties coexisting with the plunger's good tuning properties. (author)