LINAC2026 - 33rd Linear Accelerator Conference

Electrostatic Pre-buncher for Enhancing the Fast neutron Time-of-Flight Capabilities in SARAF

Not scheduled

2h

Daejeon Convention Center

Poster Presentation MC3.A04: Proton linac projects Poster Session

Speaker

Mr Ilya Polikarpov (Soreq Nuclear Research Center)

Description

Soreq Applied Research Accelerator Facility (SARAF) aims to deliver up to 5 mA CW proton/deuteron beams at energies up to 40 MeV. Neutron TOF experiments at SARAF were initially enabled through a novel electrostatic fast-chopper system installed in LEBT, to allow single RFQ bunch acceleration. More recently, a two-gap electrostatic pre-buncher has been designed, constructed, and installed in the SARAF LEBT. The pre-buncher can compress up to ~18 βλ section of the incoming DC beam to converge into a single RF cycle at the RFQ entrance, while the chopper is operated in synchronization to deflect all unwanted beam portions. Preliminary measurements demonstrate successful single-bunch selection and a good agreement with simulation results, yielding a two-fold enhancement of the charge per bunch for protons for a 5 mA peak current. For the low current of 0.1 mA the corresponding enhancement factor was of the order of 20. This enhancement is limited by space charge effects and expected to improve for deuteron beams. In this talk, we will present the design, simulations, and beam measurement results. The limitations of the approach and possible mitigations will also be discussed.