X-band Magnicon Amplifier

The magnicon is a RF power source with circular beam deflection [1] invented in the 1980's at Budker INP. The first magnicon with the power of 2.6 MW and efficiency of 73% at 915 MHz was built and tested in the pulse of 30 μsec in 1985 [2]. The second magnicon was developed as a prototype RF source for a linear collider. In order to achieve power of more than 50 MW at 7 GHz, the tube was built as a frequency doubling amplifier. The following parameters finally were achieved in 1998: power of 55 MW, efficiency of 56% and the gain of 72 dB in a pulse of 1.1 μsec [3]. The X-band (11.424 GHz) magnicon [4,5] is being developed jointly by Omega-P, Inc. and NRL as a potential high efficiency RF source for the Next Linear Collider (NLC) project. As for the 7 GHz device, this 11.424 GHz magnicon is a frequency doubling amplifier. The design has been optimized for the parameters of a 500 kV, 210 A, 1 μsec modulator with the repetition rate of 10 Hz. This modulator was built for NRL by Titan Beta for a previous project. In this paper, we present a progress report on 11.424 GHz magnicon as well as the results of the gun tests and the beam envelope measurements.