Electron-linac-based Radiation Facilities of the Ukrainian National Science Center ”kipt”

A review is given about electron Linacs of KIPT and their some applications for research of radiation effects in reactor materials, channeling, plasma-beam interactions, geology (gamma-activation analysis of ore samples), as well as sterilization of single-use medical products, modification of polymers and semiconductors, isotope production for nuclear medicine etc. 1 ELECTRON LINEAR ACCELERATORS Characteristic of the Ukraine economy of Today’s transition period is the absence of stable situation on the radiation technology market. Considering this, it would be to good advantage to develop, build and make use of accelerators with a broad range of parameters, capable to meet the market’s demands. This ideology is fundamental in the activities of “Accelerator” R&D Establishment of the Ukrainian National Science Center “Kharkov Institute of Physics&Technology”, the leading organization in Ukraine in creation of electron linacs and applicable technologies. This paper gives a short survey of some electron linear accelerators and the results in the areas of applied physics and radiation technologies. There are six electron linear accelerators at “Accelerator” R&D Establishment. The biggest one is the oldest linac in Europe LUE-2000 [1]. Three accelerators (EPOS, LU-10, KYT) are used for performing various radiation processes. There main parameters are represented in Tab.1. 1.1 Accelerator EPOS The accelerator EPOS is a two-section linac with an extracted electron beam scanning system, built on the base of the existing equipment. EPOS has been designed to be used for radiation processing of various items, employing electron beams with energies up to 30 MeV. The EPOS is disposed underground, horizontally, in a concrete tunnel. The accelerator layout is given in Fig. 1. The electron source is a diode-type gun with a lanthanum hexaboride (LaB6) heated cathode. Electron beam (5.5 mm diameter, current up to 3A) is formed in the source upon application of 80 kV-pulsed voltage to the cathode from the HV-modulator (MG). While passing the bunching cavity (B), the beam is chopped up into separate bunches. Electron acceleration takes place in a diskloaded waveguide (DLW) that has a homogeneous structure, the structure's a/b ratio being 0.14, with the phase shift per cell p/2, and the phase velocity equal to the speed of light. In order to suppress the beam breakup instability in the disk-loaded waveguide, thin radial cuts were made in them [2]. At the input end of the first section (AS1) there is a certain length (30 cm) with a lower wave phase velocity [3], providing the capture of more than 50% of the injected electrons. Temperature inside the DLW (37±0.5)C is self-maintained during the operation modes. Tab.1 Basic Linacs Parameters