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Johnson, R. P.

Publications and source records attributed to Johnson, R. P..

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

On forced RF generation of CW magnetrons for accelerators

CW magnetrons, initially developed for industrial RF heaters, were suggested to power RF cavities of superconducting accelerators due to their higher efficiency and lower cost than traditionally used klystrons, IOTs or solid-state amplifiers. RF amplifiers driven by a master oscillator serve as coherent RF sources. CW magnetrons are regenerative RF generators with a huge regenerative gain. This causes regenerative instability with a quite large noise when a magnetron operates with the anode voltage above the threshold of self-excitation. Traditionally, an injection locking by a small signal is used for stabilization of magnetrons. In this case CW magnetrons with the injection-locked oscillations generate a high level of noise. This may preclude use of standard CW magnetrons in this operating mode in the Superconducting RF (SRF) accelerators. In this article we described a method developed for forced RF generation of CW magnetrons when the magnetron startup is provided by the injected forcing signal and the regenerative noise is suppressed. The method is most suitable for powering high Q-factor cavities.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

On the Life Expectance of High-power CW Magnetrons for SRF Accelerators

Modern CW or pulse Superconducting RF (SRF) accelerators require efficient RF sources controllable in phase and power with a reduced cost. Therefore, utilization of the high-power CW magnetrons as RF sources in SRF accelerator projects was proposed in a number of works, e.g., [1, 2]. But typically, the CW magnetrons are designed as RF sources for industrial heating, and the lifetime of the tubes is not the first priority as it is required for high-energy accelerators. The high-power industrial CW magnetrons use the cathodes made of pure tungsten. The emission properties of the tungsten cathodes are not deteriorated much by electron and ion bombardments, but the latter causes sputtering of the cathode in the magnetron crossed fields. The sputtered cathode material covers the magnetron interior. This leads to sparks and discharges that limit the life of the magnetrons. We considered an analysis of magnetron failure modes vs. output power [3]. We developed a model of ionization of the residual gas in the magnetrons interaction space and simulated the spattering of the cathode in 100 kW CW magnetrons to estimate the life expectancy. Basing on results we proposed ways to increase the CW magnetrons longevity for SRF accelerators.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

On the Life Expectancy of High-Power CW magnetrons for Superconducting Accelerators*

Utilization of the high-power CW magnetrons as RF sources in SRF accelerators was proposed in a number of works, e.g., [1, 2]. But typically, the CW high-power magnetrons are designed as RF sources for industrial heating, and the lifetime of the tubes is not the first priority as it is required for high-energy accelerators. The high-power CW magnetrons use cathodes made of pure tungsten. The emission properties of the tungsten cathodes are not deteriorated much by electron and ion bombardment, but the latter causes sputtering of the cathode in the magnetron crossed fields. The sputtered cathode material covers the magnetron interior. That leads to sparks and discharges in a magnetron limiting its lifetime. Thus, the life expectancy estimates are highly important for application of CW magnetrons in SRF accelerator projects.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

On forced RF generation of CW magnetrons for SRF accelerators

CW magnetrons, initially developed for industrial RF heaters, were suggested to power RF cavities of superconducting accelerators due to their higher efficiency and lower cost of RF power per Watt than used traditionally klystrons, IOTs or solid-state amplifiers. RF amplifiers driven by a master oscillator serve as coherent RF sources. CW magnetrons are regenerative RF generators with a huge regenerative gain to start up reliably with self-excitation even if the tube is powered by a DC power supply. This causes regenerative instability with a large noise when a magnetron operates with the anode voltage above the threshold of self-excitation. Traditionally for stabilization of magnetrons is used injection locking by a signal PLock ≤ -20 dB or less then of the magnetron power PMag. Then the magnetron generates the injection locked oscillations and generates noise. This may preclude use of standard CW magnetrons in some SRF accelerators. We developed briefly described below a mode for forced coherent RF generation of CW magnetrons when the magnetron startup is provided by the injected forcing signal and the regenerative noise is suppressed. The mode is most suitable for powering high Q-factor SRF cavities.

Kazakevich, G.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Forced RF generation of CW magnetrons for superconducting accelerators

CW magnetrons, designed and optimized for industrial RF heaters, were suggested to power Superconducting RF cavities due to their higher efficiency and lower cost than traditional klystrons, IOT’s, or solid-state amplifiers. RF amplifiers driven by a master-oscillator serve as coherent RF sources. CW magnetrons are regenerative RF generators with a huge regenerative gain. Very large regenerative gain causes instability with intense noise when a magnetron operates with the anode voltage higher than the threshold of self-excitation. Traditionally for stabilization of magnetrons is used injection-locking by a quite small signal. In this case the CW magnetrons do not provide correlation of the magnetron startup with the injection-locking signal. Thus, the magnetron except the injection locked oscillations may generate large noise. This may increase emittance of the beam in SRF accelerators. Recently we have developed mode for forced RF generation of CW magnetrons when the magnetron startup is provided by the injected forcing signal and the regenerative noise is suppressed. The mode is most suitable for SRF accelerators. The mode is briefly described below.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Utilization of the CW magnetrons as coherent RF sources for superconducting RF accelerators

CW magnetrons designed and optimized for industrial heaters, driven by an injection-locking signal, were suggested to power Superconducting RF (SRF) cavities. However, the CW magnetrons, which are regenerative generators, are intended to operate in self-excitation mode, so, for reliable starting they use a large regenerative gain, causing a large regenerative instability in operation. Thus, power supply ripple, even shot noise, etc., lead to multiple sidebands forming a quasi-continuous noise spectrum at the carrier frequency. Therefore, in the traditionally used mode of operation and control, such magnetrons are inapplicable for powering high Q-factor SRF cavities. A new approach to operation and control of CW magnetrons considering non-stationary processes during start-up and operation makes it possible to find a mode of almost coherent RF generation of tubes with a significant reduction in regenerative instability and noise and increased efficiency. In our work is presented substantiation for the newly developed mode with an analysis of the new approach based on experimental results. •In this article, for the first time, non-stationary, regenerative processes are considered during the start-up and operation of CW magnetrons for powering high-Q superconducting RF cavities.•An analytical study, confirmed by experiments, showed that the traditionally used modes of starting and operating CW magnetrons are not suitable for powering high-Q superconducting RF cavities.•In fact, to make CW magnetrons suitable for such cavities, the physics of starting and operating CW magnetrons must be changed. This has been demonstrated in our work.•In developing the Stimulated Coherent Generation Mode [NIM A 980 (2020) 164366], we have shown the suitability of this mode for starting and operating CW magnetrons for high-Q superconducting RF cavities.•Analytical analysis, verified experimentally, substantiates in our article the suitability of the “Mode of stimulated coherent generation” of CW magnetrons for powering high-Q superconducting cavities in pulsed and continuous modes.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

On the Phase Grouping Mechanism for a Magnetron Coherent Oscillation

CW magnetrons, developed for industrial heaters, but driven by an injection-locking signal were suggested to power Superconducting RF (SRF) cavities due to higher efficiency and lower cost of generated RF power per Watt than traditionally used RF sources (klystrons, IOTs, solid-state amplifiers). When the magnetrons are intended to feed Room Temperature (RT) cavities, the injected phase or frequency locking signal may provide required phase or frequency stability of the accelerating field. However, when the magnetron RF sources are intended to feed high Q-factor SRF cavities, the sources must be controlled in phase and power in a wide bandwidth to compensate parasitic phase and amplitude modulations caused by microphonics. In dependence on parameters of magnetron and the injection-locking signal one can choose regime most suitable for feeding SRF cavities, enabling magnetron almost coherent oscillation at the wide bandwidth of control. A novel approach considering magnetrons as quasi-coherent or coherent RF generators enables choosing the tube parameters and operation most suitable for various SRF accelerators.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Evidence for Trapping-Induced Nonlinear Frequency Shifts in Langmuir Waves Driven via Stimulated Raman Scattering

Thomson scattering is used to detect the spectra of Langmuir waves driven through the backward stimulated Raman scattering process in a diffraction limited laser focal spot. Measured Langmuir wave spectral frequencies are found to vary in time and have broadened spectral power, consistent with a nonlinear frequency shift of the driven Langmuir wave due to electron-trapping. Broadening of the Langmuir wave spectral power is observed to decrease in time, consistent with measured variations in the frequency shift of the driven Langmuir waves. Furthermore, the observed spectral broadening is consistent with the temporally short (ps), bursty nature of backward stimulated Raman scattered light observed in simulations that cannot be resolved by the Thomson scattering diagnostic. Comparison of the broadened spectrum with time integrated spectra from two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations shows favorable comparison in the broadened spectral widths, supporting the supposition of electron-trapping induced, nonlinear shifting of daughter Langmuir wave frequencies.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Plasma Muon Beam Cooling for HEP

Ionization cooling has the potential to shrink the phase space of a muon beam by a factor of 10⁶ within the muons’ short lifetime (2.2 µs) because the collision frequency in a cooling medium is extremely high compared to conventional beam cooling methods. It has been realized that ionization cooling inherently produces a plasma of free electrons inside the absorber material, and this plasma can have an important effect on the muon beam. In particular, under the right circumstances, it can both improve the rate of cooling and reduce the equilibrium emittance of the beam. This has the potential to improve the performance of muon facilities based on muon cooling; in particular a future muon collider. We describe how this project will integrate Plasma muon beam cooling into both the basic Helical Cooling Channel (HCC) and extreme Parametric-resonance Ionization Cooling (PIC) techniques. This potentially whole new approach to muon cooling has exciting prospects for significantly reduced muon beam emittance.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Design and performance of silicon strip sensors with slim edges for HPS experiment

In this paper, we report on design and performance of new strip sensors for the Heavy Photon Search (HPS) experiment. The sensors feature a slim edge implementation using the Scribe–Cleave–Passivate (SCP) method. The slim edge design has allowed the introduction of a new layer closer to the target, which increased the tracking acceptance and vertex precision, improving physics reach of the experiment. We describe the production, testing, and operational experience with the new sensors.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2019

Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme

Laser-driven ion acceleration has been an active research area in the past two decades with the prospects of designing novel and compact ion accelerators. Many potential applications in science and industry require high-quality, energetic ion beams with low divergence and narrow energy spread. Intense laser ion acceleration research strives to meet these challenges and may provide high charge state beams, with some successes for carbon and lighter ions. Here we demonstrate the generation of well collimated, quasi-monoenergetic titanium ions with energies ~145 and 180 MeV in experiments using the high-contrast(<10-9) and high-intensity (6× 1020 W cm-2) Trident laser and ultra-Thin (~100 nm) titanium foil targets. Numerical simulations show that the foils become transparent to the laser pulses, undergoing relativistically induced transparency (RIT), resulting in a two-stage acceleration process which lasts until ~2 ps after the onset of RIT. Such long acceleration time in the self-generated electric fields in the expanding plasma enables the formation of the quasi-monoenergetic peaks. This work contributes to the better understanding of the acceleration of heavier ions in the RIT regime, towards the development of next generation laser-based ion accelerators for various applications.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Stimulated Generation of Magnetrons powered below the Self-Excitation Threshold Voltage

Modern CW or pulsed superconducting accelerators of megawatts beams require efficient RF sources controllable in phase and power. It is desirable to have an individual RF power source with power up to hundreds of kW for each Superconductive RF (SRF) cavity. For pulsed accelerators the pulse duration in millisecond range is required. The efficiency of the traditional RF sources (klystrons, IOTs, solid-state amplifiers) in comparison to magnetrons is lower and the cost of unit of RF power is significantly higher. Typically, the cost of RF sources and their operation is a significant part of the total project cost and operation. The magnetron-based RF sources with a cost of power unit of 1-3 dollars per Watt would significantly reduce the capital and operation costs in comparison with the traditional RF sources. This arouses interest in magnetron RF sources for use in modern accelerators. A recently developed kinetic model describing the principle of magnetron operation and subsequent experiments resulted in an innovative technique producing the "stimulated" generation of magnetrons powered below the self-excitation threshold voltage. The magnetron operation in this regime is stable, low noise, controllable in phase and power, and provides higher efficiency than other types of RF power sources. It allows operation in CW and pulse modes (at large duty factor). For pulsed operation this technique does not require pulse modulators to form RF pulses. It also looks as a promising opportunity to extend magnetron life time. The developed technique, its experimental verification and a brief explanation of the kinetic model substantiating the technique are presented and discussed in this article.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2018

MeV bremsstrahlung X rays from intense laser interaction with solid foils

Laser-based compact MeV X-ray sources are useful for a variety of applications such as radiography and active interrogation of nuclear materials. MeV X rays are typically generated by impinging the intense laser onto ~mm-thick high-Z foil. Here, we have characterized such a MeV X-ray source from 120 TW (80 J, 650 fs) laser interaction with a 1 mm-thick tantalum foil. Our measurements show X-ray temperature of 2.5 MeV, flux of 3 × 10 12 photons/sr/shot, beam divergence of ~0.1 sr, conversion efficiency of ~1%, that is, ~1 J of MeV X rays out of 80 J incident laser, and source size of 80 m. Our measurement also shows that MeV X-ray yield and temperature is largely insensitive to nanosecond laser contrasts up to 10 -5 . Also, preliminary measurements of similar MeV X-ray source using a double-foil scheme, where the laser-driven hot electrons from a thin foil undergoing relativistic transparency impinging onto a second high-Z converter foil separated by 50–400 m, show MeV X-ray yield more than an order of magnitude lower compared with the single-foil results.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Operation and performance of microhexcavity pixel detector in gas discharge and avalanche mode

The Microhexcavity Panel (μHex) is a novel gaseous micropattern particle detector comprised of a dense array of close-packed hexagonal pixels, each operating as an independent detection unit for ionizing radiation. It is a second generation detector derived from plasma panel detectors and microcavity detectors. The μHex is under development to be deployed as a scalable, fast timing (ns) and hermetically sealed gaseous tracking detector with high rate (> 100KHz / cm 2 ) capability. The devices reported here were fabricated as 16 × 16 pixel arrays of 2 mm edge-to-edge, 1 mm deep hexagonal cells embedded in a thin, 1.4 mm glass–ceramic wafer. Cell walls are metalized cathodes, connected to high voltage bus lines through conductive vias. Anodes are small, 457 μm diameter metal discs screen printed on the upper substrate. The detectors are filled with an operating gas to near 1 atm and then closed with a shut-off valve. They have been operated in both avalanche mode and gas discharge devices, producing mV to volt level signals with about 1 to 3 ns rise times. Operation in discharge mode is enabled by high impedance quench resistors on the high voltage bus at each pixel site. Results indicate that each individual pixel behaves as an isolated detection unit with high single pixel intrinsic efficiency to both βs from radioactive sources and to cosmic ray muons. Finally, continuous avalanche mode operation over several days at hit rates over 300 KHz / cm 2 with no gas flow have been observed. Measurements of pixel isolation, timing response, efficiency, hit rate and rate stability are reported.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2018

The experimental program for high pressure gas filled radio frequency cavities for muon cooling channels

An intense beam of muons is needed to provide a luminosity on the order of 10 34 cm -2 s -1 for a multi-TeV collider. Because muons produced by colliding a multi-MW proton beam with a target made of carbon or mercury have a large phase space, significant six dimensional cooling is required. Through ionization cooling—the only cooling method that works within the lifetime of the muon—and emittance exchange, the desired emittances for a Higgs Factory or higher energy collider are attainable. A cooling channel utilizing gas filled radio frequency cavities has been designed to deliver the requisite cool muon beam. Technology development of these RF cavities has progressed from breakdown studies, through beam tests, to dielectric loaded and reentrant cavity designs. The results of these experiments are summarized.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗