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Superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities are used in modern particle accelerators to take advantage of their very high quality factor (Q). A higher Q means that a higher RF field can be sustained, and a higher acceleration can be produced in the cavity for length unity. However, in certain situations, e.g., too high RF field, the SRF cavities can experience quenches that risk creating damage due to the rapid increase in the heat load. This is especially negative in continuous wave (CW) operation due to the impossibility of the system to recover during the off-load period. The design goal of a quench-detection system is to protect the system without being a limiting factor during the operation. In this paper, we compare two different classification approaches for improving a quench detection system. We perform tests using traces recorded from LCLS-II and show that the ARSENAL classifier outperforms a CNN classifier in terms of accuracy., Proceedings of the 31st International Linear Accelerator Conference, LINAC2022, Liverpool, UK

Cold powered testing of all LCLS-II production cryomodules at Fermilab is complete as of February 2021. A total of twenty-five tests on both 1.3 GHz and 3.9 GHz cryomodules were conducted over a nearly five year time span beginning in the summer of 2016. During the course of this campaign cutting-edge results for cavity Q₀ and gradient in continuous wave operation were achieved. A summary of all test results will be presented, with a comparison to established acceptance criteria, as well as overall test stand statistics and lessons learned., Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on RF Superconductivity, SRF2021, East Lansing, MI, USA

LCLS copper linac primarily operates in a single bunch mode with a repetition rate of 120 Hz. Presently, several in-house projects and LCLS user experiments require double- and multi-pulse trains of X-rays, with inter-pulse delay spanning between 0.35 and 220 ns. We discuss beam control improvements to the copper linac using ultra-fast stripline kicker, as well as additional photon diagnostics. We especially focus on a case of double-pulse mode, with 218 ns separation., Proceedings of the 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2022, Bangkok, Thailand

22 Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II) cryomodules were successfully tested at the Cryomodule Test Facility (CMTF) at Fermilab. Following the completion of the LCLS-II testing program, CMTF has shifted to testing cryomodules for the LCLS-II High Energy upgrade (LCLS-II-HE). The first LCLS-II-HE cryomodule, the verification cryomodule (vCM), was successfully tested and verified the readiness of LCLS-II-HE cryomodule testing at CMTF, and production cryomodule testing has begun. Presented here are the production cryomodule test acceptance criteria, testing plan, and cryomodule test results so far., Proceedings of the 31st International Linear Accelerator Conference, LINAC2022, Liverpool, UK

The new superconducting Linear Coherent Light Source (LCLS-II) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will be an upgrade to LCLS, the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser. LCLS-II is in an advanced stage of construction with equipment for both Cryoplants as well as more than half of the 37 cryomodules onsite. Jefferson Lab (JLab) is a partner lab responsible for building half of the LCLS-II cryomodules. Hence the Low Energy Recirculation Facility (LERF) at JLab was used to stage and test LCLS-II cryomodules before shipping them to SLAC. LERF was set up to test two cryomodules at a time. LERF used LCLS-II cryogenic controls instrumentation racks, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) controls and Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) Input/Output Controllers (IOCs) with the intention to use the LERF setup to check-out and verify cryogenic controls for LCLS-II. The cryogenic controls first utilized at LERF would then be replicated for controlling all 37 cryomodules via an EPICS user interface. This paper discusses the cryogenic controls currently developed for implementation in the LCLS-II project., Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, ICALEPCS2019, New York, NY, USA

The LCLS-II injector source includes a 186MHz CW rf-gun, a 1.3 GHz CW rf-buncher, a loadlock system for photocathode change, two main solenoids, and a few essential diagnostics. The electron beam is designed to operate at a high repetition rate, up to 1-MHz. Since summer of 2018 we started LCLS-II injector source commissioning immediately after the major installation was completed. Initial commissioning showed the rf-gun was severely contaminated with hydrocarbons and very limited power 600W could be fed into the gun cavity. After a few significant processes, we eventually removed the hydrocarbons and successfully delivered desired rf power of 80 kW to the gun. This paper reports first com-missioning results including gun bakeout and vacuum processing, CW RF-gun and buncher operation with nom-inal power, and measurements of rf stability and dark current., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia

The Early Injector Commissioning program for LCLS-II aims to demonstrate CW electron beam production this year in the first two meters of the injector that includes the room-temperature 185.7 MHz single-cell gun and the 1.3 GHz two-cell buncher cavity. These cavities were designed and built by LBNL based on their experience with similar ones for their Advanced Photo-Injector Experiment (APEX) program. With the 258 nm laser system and Cs2Te cathodes, bunches of up to 300 pC are expected at rates as high as 1 MHz. The paper presents results from this program including the vacuum levels achieved, RF processing and field control experience, dark current measurements and laser and beam characterization., Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on RF Superconductivity, SRF2019, Dresden, Germany

Attenuation of X-ray FEL beams is often required to avoid damaging optics and detectors during alignment, and to study fluence-dependent effects. Soft X-rays are commonly attenuated by photoabsorption in a gas such as argon. However, absorbing a mJ pulse along a meter creates a pressure wave that drives gas away from the X-ray propagation axis, until equilibrium recovers in ~1 ms. This timescale matched the 120-Hz pulse spacing of LCLS, but at the high repetition rate (up to 1 MHz) and power (up to 200 W) of LCLS-II, the attenuation of subsequent pulses is reduced. Simulations demonstrate hysteresis and erratic attenuation from gas-density depletion. Instead, we propose to replace the gas column with an argon plasma in a TM010 RF cavity. The density profile then is largely set by the RF mode. X-ray absorption becomes a perturbation compared to the energy in the plasma. An LCLS-II solid-state RF amplifier, generating up to 4 kW at 1.3 GHz, can provide the drive, and the FPGA-based low-level RF controller can be programmed to track tuning with plasma density. Several diagnostics are planned to monitor plasma properties over a fill-pressure range of 10 to 1000 Pa., Proceedings of the 39th Free Electron Laser Conference, FEL2019, Hamburg, Germany

The JLab Low Energy Recirculating Facility, LERF, has been modified to support concurrent testing of two LCLS-II cryomodules. The cryomodules are installed in a similar fashion as they would be in the L1 section of the LCLS-II linac, including the floor slope and using all of the LCLS-II hardware and controls for cryomodule cryogenics, vacuum, and RF (SSA and LLRF). From the start, it was intended to use LCLS-II electronics and EPICS software controls for cryomodule testing. In affect the LERF test facility becomes the first opportunity to commission and operate the LCLS-II LINAC hardware and software controls. Support for specific cryomodule high level test applications like Q₀ and HOMs measurements, are being developed from the basic cryomodule control suite. To support the testing, 2 K He is supplied from the CEBAF south linac cryogenic system, where care must be taken when using the LERF test facility to not upset the CEBAF cryogenics plant. This paper discusses the commissioning of the hardware and software development for testing the first two LCLS-II cryomodules., Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on RF Superconductivity, SRF2019, Dresden, Germany

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is building LCLS-II, a new 4 GeV CW superconducting (SCRF) linac as a major upgrade of the existing LCLS. The SCRF linac consists of 35 ILC style cryomodules (eight cavities each) for a total of 280 cavities. Expected cavity gradients are 16 MV/m with a loaded QL of ~ 4 x 10⁷. Each individual RF cavity will be powered by one 3.8 kW solid state amplifier. To ensure optimum field stability a single source single cavity control system has been chosen. It consists of a precision four channel cavity receiver and two RF stations (Forward, Reflected and Drive signals) each controlling two cavities. In order to regulate the resonant frequency variations of the cavities due to He pressure, the tuning of each cavity is controlled by a Piezo actuator and a slow stepper motor. In addition the system (LLRF-amplifier-cavity) was modeled and cavity microphonic testing has started. This paper will describe the main system elements as well as test results on LCLS-II cryomodules., Proceedings of the 16th Int. Conf. on Accelerator and Large Experimental Control Systems, ICALEPCS2017, Barcelona, Spain

The unique properties of SRF cavities enable a new generation of X-ray light sources in XFEL and LCLS-II. The LCLS-II design calls for 280 L-band cavities to be operated in CW mode with a Q_{L} of 4x10⁷, using Single-Source Single-Cavity control. The target RF field stability is 0.01% and 0.01 degree for the band above 1 Hz. Hardware and software implementing a digital LLRF system has been constructed by a four-lab collaboration to minimize known contributors to cavity RF field fluctuation. Efforts include careful attachment to the phase reference line, and minimizing the effects of RF crosstalk by placing forward and reverse signals in chassis separate from the cavity measurement. A low-noise receiver/digitizer section will allow feedback to operate with high proportional gain without excessive noise being sent to the drive amplifier. Test results will show behavior on prototype cryomodules at FNAL and JLab, ahead of the 2018 final accelerator installation., Proceedings of the 18th Int. Conf. on RF Superconductivity, SRF2017, Lanzhou, China

A nanosecond-range, multi-MW system containing TEM mode electrodynamic structures fed by controllable pulsers are needed for (1) fast injection systems in multi-bend achromat upgraded (MBA-U) storage rings and for (2) arrays of FEL beamlines powered by a superconducting linear accelerators operating with MHz-bunch repetition rate. The R&D effort covers both type (1) and (2) layouts. This report discuss the experimental results of several concepts for a generation of the nanosecond range multi MW pulsers. Compression of the initially formed electromagnetic (EM) power is employed for a generation of the nanosecond pulses in all concepts discussed here. A solid-state nonlinear media assists the EM compression. Features of the materials and components used in the design will be presented. The results will be included in the design of the kicker systems for advanced FEL facilities. For example, in the LCLS-II, the nanosecond range pulse allows for distributing closely spaced bunches to multiple undulators allowing experimenters to take advantage of combining different colored x-rays., Proceedings of the 38th Int. Free Electron Laser Conf., FEL2017, Santa Fe, NM, USA

For a free electron laser, the stability of injector is critical to the final electron beam parameters, e.g., beam energy, beam arrival time, and eventually it determines the photon quality. The LCLS-II project's injector contains a VHF copper cavity as the gun and a two-cell L-band copper cavity as its buncher. The cavity designs are inherited from the APEX design, but requires more field stability than demonstrated in APEX operation. The gun LLRF system design uses a connectorized RF front end and low noise digitizer, together with the same general purpose FPGA carrier board used in the LCLS-II SRF LLRF system. The buncher LLRF system directly adopts the SRF LLRF chassis design, but programs the controller to run the normal conducting cavities. In this paper, we describe the gun/buncher LLRF system design, including the hardware design, the firmware design and bench test., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

With continual advances and the development of new technologies, such as superconducting cavities, particle accelerators have become more complex. New accelerator designs have more demanding stability requirements for the cavity RF fields, up to 0.01% in amplitude and 0.01' in phase for hundreds of cavities in Continuous Wave (CW) operation. Compensating for disturbances from mechanical resonances, microphonics, natural couplings and unwanted channel crosstalk is a challenge for the Low Level Radio Frequency (LLRF) control systems. For the upgrade to the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS-II) at SLAC, a high performance LLRF control system is being designed and developed to drive the Solid State Amplifiers (SSA) and control the cavity fields within specifications. The different components of the LLRF hardware have been designed, constructed and tested separately. Here, we describe a test environment, still under development, for integration, characterization and qualification of the LLRF system with all the LLRF hardware integrated in a single prototype rack., Proceedings of the 8th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2017, Copenhagen, Denmark

The energy jitters of the electron beam can affects the FEL in self-seeded modes if the jitter is large compared to the FEL parameter. We work in multiple ways to reduce the jitters, including hardware improvement, optimization linac set-up. This paper discusses the optimization of linac set-up. The solutions always suggest that we can largely reduce the energy jitter from a weak compression at BC1 and a stronger compression at BC2. Meanwhile a low beam energy at BC2 also reduce the energy jitter, which is confirmed by the experiment. The results can be explained by a simple model. Experimental results are also presented, demonstrating better than 20% and 40% relative energy jitter reduction for 13.6 and 4 GeV linac operation, respectively., Proceedings of the 37th International Free Electron Laser Conference, FEL2015, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

The beam stability of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) has seen many improvements over the years and has matured to a state where progress is slow and maintaining the best stability is becoming the main challenge. Single sources which are identified by various means contribute to only about 10 to 20% of the whole jitter power, meaning that their elimination gives only a small improvement of 5 to 10%. New sources need to be identified fast. Especially slow variations of a few seconds to minutes time scale are often hidden and partially corrected by feedback systems. A few episodes of increased jitter have shown the limitations of some of the feedback systems. Stability for all dimensions, transverse, longitudinal, and intensity are presented., Proceedings of the 5th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2014, Dresden, Germany

A Marx-topology klystron modulator is under development for the International Linear Collider (ILC) project*. It is envisioned as a lower cost, smaller footprint, and higher reliability alternative to the present, bouncer-topology, baseline design. The application requires 120 kV (±0.5%), 140 A, 1.6 ms pulses at a rate of 5 Hz. The Marx constructs the high voltage pulse by combining, in series, a number of lower voltage cells. The Marx employs solid state elements; IGBTs and diodes, to control the charge, discharge and isolation of the cells. Active compensation of the output is used to achieve the voltage regulation while minimizing the stored energy. The developmental testing of a first generation prototype, P1, has been completed. This modulator has been integrated into a test stand with a 10 MW L-band klystron, where each is undergoing life testing. Development of a second generation prototype, P2, is underway. The P2 is based on the P1 topology but incorporates an alternative cell configuration to increase redundancy and improve availability. Status updates for both prototypes are presented., Proceedings of the 1st International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2010, Kyoto, Japan