LINAC2026 - 33rd Linear Accelerator Conference

Travelling-Wave RF Photogun: From Back-of-the-Envelope Concept to High-Power Operation

Not scheduled

2h

Daejeon Convention Center

Poster Presentation MC1.A02 Electron and ion sources, guns, photo injectors, charge breeders Poster Session

Speaker

Thomas Lucas (Paul Scherrer Institute)

Description

Approximately 35 years after it was first conceptualised, a one-of-a-kind travelling-wave RF photogun has been designed, realised, and tested, achieving cathode peak fields of up to 180 MV/m. Installed at the C-band test stand at PSI, the system demonstrates robust and reliable high-power operation. We present an overview of the RF design, the unique tuning-free realisation, and the results of high-power testing, highlighting how travelling-wave gun technology opens new opportunities for electron sources. In addition, we describe the integration of field-emission tips to realise a travelling-wave field-emission gun capable of generating GHz bunch trains. This technology is expected to have broad impact across a range of applications, from high-average-current requirements such as medical therapy to ultra-high-brightness beams for MeV electron microscopy.