Normal-conducting RF cavity of high current photoinjector for high power CW FEL.

An RF photoinjector capable of producing high continuous average current with low emittance and energy spread is a key enabling technology for high power CW FEL. The design of a 2.5-cell, {pi}-mode, 700-MHz normal-conducting RF photoinjector cavity with magnetic emittance compensation is completed. With the electric field gradients of 7.7, and 5 MV/m in the three cells, the photoinjector will produce a 2.5-MeV electron beam with 3-nC charge per bunch and the transverse rms emittance 7 mm-mrad. Electromagnetic modeling was used extensively to optimize ridge-loaded tapered waveguides and RF couplers, which led to a new, improved coupler iris design. The results, combined with a thermal and stress analysis, show that the challenging problem of cavity cooling can be successfully solved. The manufacturing of a demo 100-mA (at 35 MHz bunch repetition rate) photoinjector is underway. The design is scalable to higher power levels by increasing the electron bunch repetition rate, and provides a path to a MW-class amplifier FEL. This paper presents the cavity design and details of RF coupler modeling.