Superconducting Cavities for Next Generation Heavy-Ion Accelerators

Superconducting (SC) triple-spoke cavities with state-of-the-art performance have been developed at Argonne for use in the next generation of heavy-ion accelerators, such as the proposed Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). The spoke cavity design was pioneered at Argonne in the early 1990’s. Nowadays these cavities operate at much higher fields and with lower RF losses than earlier technologies. This would translate into millions of dollars in savings for FRIB.

This work builds upon 35 years of experience at Argonne in developing and operating superconducting cavities for ATLAS, the worlds first superconducting heavy-ion linear accelerator. Argonne-developed cavities and related hardware are in operation at a half dozen other institutions worldwide.

A set of five new SC cavities, including the one shown in the photograph above (b=0.5 triple-spoke), were developed for Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). They cover a wide range of ion velocities.

Reference

• M. Kelly, “Status of SC Spoke Cavity Development,” in Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on RF Superconductivity, Beijing, China, October 14–19, 2007.