Binary Peak-power Multiplier and Its Application to Linear Accelerator Design*

The voltage gained by a charged particle traversing an accelerator section is proportional to the peak power into the section. Thus a high peak power results in high particle voltages in a relatively short distance, a practical requirement of high particle energy accelerators. Pulse compression is a means to obtain high peak power. This note describes a new method of pulse compression, the Binary Power Multiplier, (BPM) a device which multiplies rf power in binary steps. It comprises one or more stages, each of which doubles the input power and halves the input pulse length. Thus the BPM increases peak power by multiples of 2 by means of pulse compression. The active control element of the binary power multiplier operates at low power and only passive devices are needed in the high power portion. We will describe practical designs and derive the expression for their compression efficiency. We will illustrate the usefulness of pulse compression for accelerator design and compare accelerator power systems using the binary power multiplier with the pulse compression system currently in use at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Submitted to Special Transaction Issue on New and Future Applications of Microwave Systems * Work supported by the Department of Energy, contract DE AC03 76SF00515.