An energy spread minimization system for microbeam generation in the JAERI AVF cyclotron

A heavy-ion microbeam with energy of hundreds of MeV is a significantly useful probe for research in biology and biotechnology. A single-ion hit technique using the heavy-ion microbeam is being developed at the JAERI AVF cyclotron facility for elucidation of biofunctions. For production of a microbeam with a spot size of one micro-meter in diameter, the energy spread in the beam is required to be reduced to 0.02% to minimize the effect of chromatic aberrations in the focusing lenses. The energy spread in the cyclotron beam depends on a waveform of the acceleration voltage and beam phase acceptance of the cyclotron. The typical energy spread of the cyclotron beam is around 0.1% in the ordinary acceleration mode using a sinusoidal voltage waveform. The energy spread can be reduced by superimposing a fifth-harmonic voltage waveform on the fundamental one to generate a flat-top waveform for uniform energy gain. The flat-top acceleration system has been designed for the variable-energy multi-particle AVF cyclotron with acceleration harmonic mode of 1, 2 and 3. An additional coaxial cavity has been installed to generate the fifth-harmonic voltage, coupled to the main resonator. The frequency range of the fifth harmonics, 55–110 MHz, was fully covered by the flat-top acceleration system.