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We present our recent results generating 510 MW of power at 11.7 GHz using a metamaterial-based metallic power-extractor for application in structure-based wakefield acceleration (SWFA). SWFA is a novel acceleration scheme in which high-charge electron bunches are passed through a power extractor structure to produce a high-intensity wakefield. This wakefield can then be used to accelerate a witness bunch in the same beamline or passed to a separate acceleration beamline. MIT’s approach uses a specialized metamaterial for the power extractor design. By using a metamaterial, we can overcome some of the challenges faced by other SWFA techniques. Here, we discuss the Stage 3 experiment. The Stage 1 and Stage 2 experiments successfully demonstrated the functionality of the metamaterial approach by generating high power RF pulses using the 65 MeV electron beam at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator (AWA) facility. The 510 MW result from Stage 3 experiment is the highest power generated to-date for SWFA at AWA, and was enable by significant design improvements, including an all-copper structure, fully-symmetric coupler design, and breakdown risk-reduction treatment., Proceedings of the 12th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2021, Campinas, SP, Brazil

Planar nitrogen-incorporated ultrananocrystalline diamond, (N)UNCD, is a unique and attractive field emission source because of the capability to generate high charge beam, the simplicity of production without shaped emitters, and the ease of handling with moderate vacuum requirement. In the presented study using an L-band normal conducting single-cell rf gun, a (N)UNCD cathode has been conditioned to 42 MV/m with a well-controlled manner and reached a maximum charge of 15 nC and an average emission current of 6~mA during a 2.5 us emission period. The systematic study of emission properties during the rf conditioning process illustrates the tunability of (N)UNCD in a wide range of surface gradients. This research demonstrates the versatility of (N)UNCD cathode which could enable multiple designs of field emission rf injector for industrial and scientific applications., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia

We present initial measurements from a UCLA-Argonne Wakefield Accelerator collaborative plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) experiment aimed at demonstrating the dependence of transformer ratio on longitudinal beam shape. The transformer ratio or the ratio between the maximum acceleration of the witness and the maximum deceleration of the drive beam, is key to a mature, beam-based, plasma wakefield accelerator design. Utilizing the unique capabilities of the emittance exchange (EEX) beamline, we may obtain transformer ratios in excess of six in PWFA. We present the experimental beamline design, relevant beam diagnostics and explore preservation of the longitudinal beam profile., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia

We present experimental emission results from arrays of diamond field emitter tips operating in an RF gun at the Argonne Cathode Test-stand. Results from various arrays will be presented with different spacing between array elements. Very high charge densities were produced at various field gradients. The maximum field gradient for a particular geometry was discovered and break-down effects will be presented. Cathode lifetime was preliminarily studied. Further experiments are being planned and work on the cathode design optimization to produce higher quality beams will be discussed., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia

Short pulse two-beam acceleration (TBA) is a structure wakefield acceleration (SWFA) approach aiming to achieve gradient above 250 MV/m using rf pulses less than 20 ns. An X-band 11.7 GHz metallic power extractor has been developed as the power source to test accelerating structures in this extreme regime. The power extractor is designed to be driven by high charge bunches separated by 769.2 ps (9 times the X-band period) on an L-band 1.3 GHz beamline. In the recent experiment, ~280 MW rf pulses with 3 ns flat-top have been measured by a coaxial rf pickup when driven by 8-bunch trains with a total charge of ~500 nC. The power level is ~50% lower than the theoretical prediction and simulation. Experimental investigation suggests that the missing power was mainly caused by the multipacting issue inside the rf pickup, which could be eliminated by a newly-designed directional coupler., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia

Advanced CW accelerators are one of high priority directions identified by Advanced Accelerator Concepts Research Roadmap Workshop Report *. High transformer ratio of beam-driven accelerators is critically important for cost-effective FEL systems. We present a proposed experiment for demonstrating a high transformer ratio CW dielectric accelerator using operational SRF accelerator built for Coherent electron Cooling experiment. This accelerator operates with CW electron beam comprised of 78 kHz train of electron bunches. Electron bunches with controllable longitudinal and charge up to 10 nC per bunch are generated in 1.25 MV SRF photo-electron gun. This bunches are ballistically compressed to duration of 10-to-30 psec and accelerated to 15 MeV in SRF linac**. Such bunches would be excellent drivers of high-transformer ratio DWA accelerators. In this paper we present expected performance of proposed CW DWA accelerator., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia

The generation of high-brightness beams with ultra-low emittance using the plasma photocathode technique has gained significant traction in recent years. The practical execution of a combined plasma wakefield acceleration section and a laser injected typically requires a dual gas medium for precision ionization of low and high ionization thresholds. The concept can be partially simplified in experiment by replacing the plasma wakefield acceleration component with a dielectric wakefield acceleration scheme, sacrificing field gradient but maintaining low emittance beam generation. In this paper, we describe the progress on the design of a hybrid scheme, using laser injection in a gas medium within a dielectric wakefield accelerator structure. The proof-of-concept experiment is planned to take place at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia