Advanced accelerator theory development

Abstract

A new accelerator technology, the dielectric wall accelerator (DWA), is potentially an ultra compact accelerator/pulsed power driver. This new accelerator relies on three new components: the ultra-high gradient insulator, the asymmetric Blumlein and low jitter switches. In this report, we focused our attention on the first two components of the DWA system the insulators and the asymmetric Blumlein. First, we sought to develop the necessary design tools to model and scale the behavior of the high gradient insulator. To perform this task we concentrated on modeling the discharge processes (i.e., initiation and creation of the surface discharge). In addition, because these high gradient structures exhibit favorable microwave properties in certain accelerator configurations, we performed experiments and calculations to determine the relevant electromagnetic properties. Second, we performed circuit modeling to understand energy coupling to dynamic loads by the asymmetric Blumlein. Further, we have experimentally observed a non-linear coupling effect in certain asymmetric Blumlein configurations. That is, as these structures are stacked into a complete module, the output voltage does not sum linearly and a lower than expected output voltage results. Although we solved this effect experimentally, we performed calculations to understand this effect more fully to allow better optimization of this DWA pulse-forming line system.