High Power Testing of ANL X‐Band Dielectric‐Loaded Accelerating Structures

A program is underway at Argonne National Laboratory to develop RF‐driven dielectric‐loaded accelerating (DLA) structures with the ultimate goal of demonstrating a compact, high‐gradient linear accelerator based on this technology. In the first part of this program, as previously reported on, DLA structures were successfully designed, numerically modeled, constructed, vacuum tested, and cold tested with a network analyzer. In this paper, we report on the next stage of the program, the recent results of high power tests carried out on two DLA prototypes at the 11.424‐GHz magnicon facility at the Naval Research Laboratory. The purpose of these tests was to study the DLA structure under high power conditions in order to look for signs of dielectric breakdown, a fundamental issue for this technology. In two separate series of experiments, the magnicon powered both a traveling‐wave and standing‐wave DLA structure. A discussion of results and future directions for this program will be presented.