Status of ILU-14 electron accelerator

A new high power (up to 100 kW) industrial linear electron accelerator ILU-14 for energy of 7.5–10 MeV is under construction at Budker INP. The accelerator operates at 176 MHz with total efficiency of 26 %, its modular structure allows the electron energy and beam current to be varied within certain limits by changing the modular arrangement. The 5 MeV prototype of the accelerator was created and successfully tested in 2009. The designed average beam current of 600 mA with pulsed power of 2.5 MW and accelerating structure electron efficiency of 68 % were obtained during experiments. Applying an additional RF voltage to the electron gun cathode-grid gap allowed a beam current passing of 96 % with minor beam energy spread. The paper presents results of the numerical and experimental study of the accelerator systems together with the latest tests on the accelerator prototype.