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At least 433 records · Page 24

A fiber-coupled dispersion interferometer for density measurements of pulsed power transmission line electron sheaths on Sandia’s Z machine

A fiber-coupled Dispersion Interferometer (DI) is being developed to measure the electron density of plasmas formed in power flow regions, such as magnetically insulated transmission lines, on Sandia National Laboratories (SNL’s) Z machine [D. B. Sinars et al., Phys. Plasmas 27, 070501 (2020)]. The diagnostic operates using a fiber-coupled 1550 nm CW laser with frequency-doubling to 775 nm. The DI is expected to be capable of line-average density measurements between ∼1013 and 1019 cm−2. Initial testing has been performed on a well-characterized RF lab plasma [A. G. Lynn et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 80, 103501 (2009)] at the University of New Mexico to quantify the density resolution lower limits of the DI. Initial testing of the DI has demonstrated line-average electron density measurements within 9% of results acquired via a 94 GHz mm wave interferometer for line densities of ∼1 × 1014 cm−2, despite significant differences in probe beam geometries. The instrument will next be utilized for measurements on a ∼1 MA-scale pulsed power driver {MYKONOS [N. Bennett et al., Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 22, 120401 (2019)] at SNL} before finally being deployed on SNL’s Z machine. The close electrode spacing (mm scale) on Z requires probe beam sizes of ∼1 mm, which can only be obtained with visible or near infrared optical systems, as opposed to longer wavelength mm wave systems that would normally be chosen for this range of density.

Hines, N. R. (ORCID:0000000315316465)↗

Development of an X-band 25 watt traveling-wave tube

The development of a 25 watt high efficiency travelingwave tube at 8.5 GHz for space communications and telemetry applications is reported. Described is the design basis for the tube, which is known as the WJ-3703. Because of the combined high efficiency and high frequency requirements, the helix and body dimensions are very small and require special techniques for various assembly and construction procedures. These are described in detail. Measurement results of focusing tests and RF operation are given, but only pulsed RF performance of the tubes was obtained.

Roberts, L. A.↗

Design and Principles of Linear Accelerators and Colliders." in Particle Physics Reference Library, pp. 295-336. Springer, Cham, 2020.

Linear accelerators (linacs) use alternating radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields to accelerate charged particles in a straight line. Linacs were invented about 95 years ago and have seen many significant technical innovations since. A wide range of particle beams have been accelerated with linacs including beams of electrons, positrons, protons, antiprotons, and heavy ions. Linac parameter possibilities include pulsed versus continuous wave, low and high beam powers, low and high repetition rates, low transverse emittance beams, short bunches with small energy spreads, and accelerated multiple bunches in a single pulse. The number of linacs around the world has grown tremendously with thousands of linacs in present use, many for medical therapy, in industry, and for research and development in a broad spectrum of scientific fields. Researchers have developed accelerators for scientific tools in their own right, being awarded several Nobel prizes. Moreover, linacs and particle accelerators in general have enabled many discovery level science experiments in related fields, resulting in many Nobel prizes as well.

Seeman, John↗

First High-Gradient Results of UED/UEM SRF Gun at Cryogenic Temperatures

Benefiting from the rapid progress on RF photogun technologies in the past two decades, the development of MeV range ultrafast electron diffraction/microscopy (UED and UEM) has been identified as an enabling instrumentation. UEM or UED use low power electron beams with modest energies of a few MeV to study ultrafast phenomena in a variety of novel and exotic materials. SRF photoguns become a promising candidate to produce highly stable electrons for UEM/UED applications because of the ultrahigh shot-to-shot stability compared to room temperature RF photoguns. SRF technology was prohibitively expensive for industrial use until two recent advancements: Nb₃Sn and conduction cooling. The use of Nb₃Sn allows to operate SRF cavities at higher temperatures (4K) with low power dissipation which is within the reach of commercially available closed-cycle cryocoolers. Euclid is developing a continuous wave (CW), 1.5-cell, MeV-scale SRF conduction cooled photogun operating at 1.3 GHz. In this paper, we present first high gradient results of the gun conducted in liquid helium.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Application of Superconducting Cavities as Ultra-Sensitive RF Photon Detectors

Superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities are the world’s most efficient engineered oscillators, and they have long been employed for extremely high efficiency transfer of energy to beams of charged particles. Decades of R&D for particle accelerators have led to modern treatments for SRF cavities that achieve higher performance than was previously possible. Advanced SRF cavities using particle accelerator technology are now being used to search for new physics, including dark matter and gravitational waves. The extremely high Q makes it possible to search for very small signals from photons in the radio frequency range, and the extremely high electric fields makes it possible to perform experiments that involve pumping one mode of a cavity in order to search for power transfer mediated by new physics. This talk will present novel experiments that employ SRF cavities, including searches for axions and dark photons dark matter, light-shining-through-walls, and high frequency gravitational waves. Results to be presented include searches with world record sensitivity.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Development of a Traveling-Wave (TW) SRF cavity

Traveling-wave technology can push the accelerator field gradient of niobium SRF cavity to 70MV/m or higher beyond the fundamental limit of 50~60MV/m in Standing-Wave regime. The 1st demonstration of TW resonance excitation in a proof-of-principle 3-cell SRF cavity in 2K liquid helium was successfully carried out at Fermilab in collaboration with Euclid Techlabs. In parallel with that, to advancing TW technologies necessary more for future accelerator-scale one, Fermilab has proposed a preliminary RF design of a half-meter scale TW SRF cavity by considering the physical dimensions of existing SRF facilities and the lessons learned from the 3-cell,. It consists of a 7-cell structure and a power feedback waveguide (WG) loop with new RF configurations to control TW resonance. Development efforts toward a TW 7-cell has been in progress. Here we report the recent activities and progresses of those.

Furuta, F.↗

A Compact Dual-Band Bowtie Antenna for RF and ISM bands Operation

Traditionally, bowtie antennas have been known to exhibit wide impedance characteristics, omnidirectional radiation patterns, and linear polarization. There is a broad range of applications from medical imaging, archaeological survey, and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to trackers and sensor networks where wideband bowtie antenna designs are required for their operations. Broadening the bandwidth of bowtie antenna requires widening the flare angle of the bowtie arms, which consequently results in a large surface area that may not be suitable for space-constrained applications. Moreover, drawback attributes of the wideband bowtie designs feature inconsistent radiation pattern across the bandwidth and low signal-to-noise (SNR) ratios. As it is known, the SNR would be improved in dual- or multi-band antennas due to their reduced bandwidth. To this end, dual-band/multi-band antennas are preferred over wideband antennas in applications where more than a single frequency of interest is present. Previously, a two-port double-dipole elements was reported, whose arms were orthogonally interleaved to facilitate operation in both the standard WLAN frequency bands (J. M. Steyn and et. al, Progress in Electromagnetic Research, Vol. – 10 pp. 151-161). Even though the antenna is not very compact it does exhibit good cross-polarization, moderate gain in both frequency bands. Another dual-band bowtie antenna which excites two bands using a single transmission line was reported (Wen Chao Zheng and et. al, IEEE Trans. Antennas propag., 2014). The design was compact and did not need multi-port feeding network. In this paper, a dual-band compact bowtie antenna operating at 900 MHz (RF band) and 2.45 GHz (ISM band) using a single excitation port is introduced. It is printed on a 1.54mm thick dielectric substrate (εr = 3.38). The antenna consists of two sets of bowtie arms, a microstrip transmission line to feed the bowtie arms, and a ground plane acting as a reflector to partially reduce the back radiation. One of the bowtie arms of each frequency is printed on the top layer and the other arm, which is mirror imaged, is printed on the bottom layer of the substrate. The length of the bowtie controls the resonance frequency of the antenna and the flare angle controls the bandwidth of the antenna. The microstrip transmission line, connected to a 50 Ω SMA probe, feeds the bowtie antenna. The compact antenna can be used for both RF and ISM band applications. The bowtie arms at the lower frequency band are miniaturized by elongating their electrical lengths. The influence of miniaturizing the bowtie arms and the supporting partial ground plane is observed in the reduced peak gain and degraded front-to-back ratio. These are partly neutralized using four quarter-wave choke-slots in the ground plane with two on each side of the feeding transmission line. The proposed antenna is numerically investigated and finalized by the finite-element based full-wave EM solver, ANSYS HFSS. The miniaturization has reduced the ground plane size by ~45% and the arms size by ~41%. In addition to the size reduction benefits, the antenna shows reasonable peak gain and front-to-back ratio in both the bands. The corresponding results will be presented and discussed at the conference.

Saininad Naik↗

First in operando transient grating spectroscopy measurements on tungsten during high flux plasma operation in PISCES-RF

This work details the construction and first in operando transient grating spectroscopy measurements conducted on PISCES-RF during plasma operation. A preliminary study on a tungsten sample with varied plasma species (Ar and D 2 ), ion flux (4 × 10 21 to 6 × 10 22 ion/m 2 /s), ion energy (5 to 80 eV), and surface temperature (20 to 200 °C) is presented. Prior to plasma exposure, the thermal diffusivity and surface acoustic wave (SAW) speed, (6.9 ± 0.2) × 10 −5 m 2 /s and (2.66 ± 0.02) km/s, were measured in situ with a thermal grating period of 12.5 μm. During Ar plasma exposure, these two quantities vary according to the sample surface temperature. At low flux and varied ion energy, D 2 plasma exposure also results in thermal diffusivity and SAW speed varying with surface temperature alone. At high flux, D 2 plasma exposure results in no convincing change to the thermal diffusivity, but the SAW speed is reduced. After returning to 20 °C, post plasma exposures, the thermal diffusivity and SAW speed almost recover to the initial value prior to exposure.

Surface acoustic wave SAW↗

High-Brightness Continuous-Wave Electron Beams from Superconducting Radio-Frequency Photoemission Gun

Continuous-wave photoinjectors operating at high accelerating gradients promise to revolutionize many areas of science and applications. They can establish the basis for a new generation of monochromatic x-ray free electron lasers, high-brightness hadron beams, or a new generation of microchip production. In this Letter we report on the record-performing superconducting rf electron gun with CsK 2 Sb photocathode. The gun is generating high charge electron bunches (up to 10 nC / bunch ) and low transverse emittances, while operating for months with a single photocathode. As such, this achievement opens a new era in generating high-power beams with a very high average brightness.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Waveguide Power Combiner Demonstration for Multiple High Power Millimeter Wave TWTAs

NASA is presently developing nuclear reactor technologies, under Project Prometheus, which will provide spacecraft with greatly increased levels of sustained onboard power and thereby dramatically enhance the capability for future deep space exploration. The first mission planned for use of this high power technology is the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO). In addition to electric propulsion and science, there will also be unprecedented onboard power available for deep space communications. A 32 GHz transmitter with 1 kW of RF output power is being considered to enable the required very high data transmission rates. One approach to achieving the 1 kW RF power, now being investigated at NASA GRC, is the possible power combining of a number of 100-1 50 W TWTs now under development. The work presented here is the results of a proof-of-concept demonstration of the power combining Ka-band waveguide circuit design and test procedure using two Ka- band TWTAs (Varian model VZA6902V3 and Logimetrics model A440/KA-1066), both of which were previously employed in data uplink evaluation terminals at 29.36 GHz for the NASA Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) program. The characterization of the individual TWTAs and power combining demonstration were done over a 500 MHz bandwidth from 29.1 to 29.6 GHz to simulate the Deep Space Network (DSN) bandwidth of 3 1.8 to 32.3 GHz. Figures 1-3 show some of the power transfer and gain measurements of the TWTAs using a swept signal generator (Agilent 83640b) for the RF input. The input and output powers were corrected for circuit insertion losses due to the waveguide components. The RF saturated powers of both ACTS TWTAs were on the order of 120 W, which is comparable to the expected output powers of the 32 GHz TWTs. Additional results for the individual TWTAs will be presented (AM/AM, AM/PM conversion and gain compression), some of which were obtained from swept frequency and power measurements using a vector network analyzer. The results for the power combining demonstration as well as a more detailed description of the power combining test circuit and test procedure will also be presented.

Wintucky, Edwin G.↗

Method and apparatus for ion mobility separations utilizing alternating current waveforms

Methods and apparatuses for ion manipulations, including ion trapping, transfer, and mobility separations, using traveling waves (TW) formed by continuous alternating current (AC) are disclosed. An apparatus for ion manipulation includes a surface to which are coupled a first plurality of continuous electrodes and a second plurality of segmented electrodes. The second plurality of segmented electrodes is arranged in longitudinal sets between or adjacent to the first plurality of electrodes. An RF voltage applied to adjacent electrodes of the first plurality of electrodes is phase shifted by approximately 180° to confine ions within the apparatus. An AC voltage waveform applied to adjacent electrodes within a longitudinal set of the second plurality of segmented electrodes is phase shifted on the adjacent electrodes by 1°-359° to move ions longitudinally through the apparatus for separation.

Garimella, Venkata B. S.↗

Method and apparatus for ion mobility separations utilizing alternating current waveforms

Methods and apparatuses for ion manipulations, including ion trapping, transfer, and mobility separations, using traveling waves (TW) formed by continuous alternating current (AC) are disclosed. An apparatus for ion manipulation includes a surface to which are coupled a first plurality of continuous electrodes and a second plurality of segmented electrodes. The second plurality of segmented electrodes is arranged in longitudinal sets between or adjacent to the first plurality of electrodes. An RF voltage applied to adjacent electrodes of the first plurality of electrodes is phase shifted by approximately 180° to confine ions within the apparatus. An AC voltage waveform applied to adjacent electrodes within a longitudinal set of the second plurality of segmented electrodes is phase shifted on the adjacent electrodes by 1°-359° to move ions longitudinally through the apparatus for separation.

Garimella, Venkata B. S.↗

Improvements in Speed and Functionality of a 670-GHz Imaging Radar

Significant improvements have been made in the instrument originally described in a prior NASA Tech Briefs article: Improved Speed and Functionality of a 580-GHz Imaging Radar (NPO-45156), Vol. 34, No. 7 (July 2010), p. 51. First, the wideband YIG oscillator has been replaced with a JPL-designed and built phase-locked, low-noise chirp source. Second, further refinements to the data acquisition and signal processing software have been performed by moving critical code sections to C code, and compiling those sections to Windows DLLs, which are then invoked from the main LabVIEW executive. This system is an active, single-pixel scanned imager operating at 670 GHz. The actual chirp signals for the RF and LO chains were generated by a pair of MITEQ 2.5 3.3 GHz chirp sources. Agilent benchtop synthesizers operating at fixed frequencies around 13 GHz were then used to up-convert the chirp sources to 15.5 16.3 GHz. The resulting signals were then multiplied 36 times by a combination of off-the-shelf millimeter- wave components, and JPL-built 200- GHz doublers and 300- and 600-GHz triplers. The power required to drive the submillimeter-wave multipliers was provided by JPL-built W-band amplifiers. The receive and transmit signal paths were combined using a thin, high-resistivity silicon wafer as a beam splitter. While the results at present are encouraging, the system still lacks sufficient speed to be usable for practical applications in a contraband detection. Ideally, an image acquisition speed of ten seconds, or a factor of 30 improvement, is desired. However, the system improvements to date have resulted in a factor of five increase in signal acquisition speed, as well as enhanced signal processing algorithms, permitting clearer imaging of contraband objects hidden underneath clothing. In particular, advances in three distinct areas have enabled these performance enhancements: base source phase noise reduction, chirp rate, and signal processing. Additionally, a second pixel was added, automatically reducing the imaging time by a factor of two. Although adding a second pixel to the system doubles the amount of submillimeter components required, some savings in microwave hardware can be realized by using a common low-noise source.

Dengler, Robert J.↗

Application of acoustic surface wave technology to shuttle radar

The application of surface acoustic wave (SAW) signal processing devices in the space shuttle was explored. In order to demonstrate the functions which a SAW device might perform, a breadboard pulse compression filter (PCF) module was assembled. The PCF permits a pulse radar to operate with a large duty cycle and low peak power, a regime favorable to the use of solid state RF sources. The transducer design, strong coupling compensation, circuit model analysis, fabrication limitations, and performance evaluation of a PCF are described. The nominal value of the compression ratio is 100:1 with 10-MHz bandwidth centered at 60 MHz and 10-microsecond dispersive delay. The PCF incorporates dispersive interdigital transducers and a piezoelectric lithium niobate substrate.

Source record↗

Observation of a THz-sub-THz spontaneous coherent undulator radiation driven by a low energy electron beam from a thermionic RF electron gun

In this work, we report observations of an intense, multi-band, sub-THz and THz radiation extracted from a similar to 2-3 MeV electron beam with a flat transverse profile propagating in an oversized rectangular waveguide placed into a 3.25 mm gap of a planar undulator having 1.3 cm period and similar to 20 cm length. Radiation outcoupling is accomplished using a horn antenna and a miniature permanent in-vacuum magnet separating the mm-sub-mm-waves and electron beam. A table-top experiment utilizes a radio frequency thermionic electron gun delivering a thousand momentum-chirped microbunches per macropulse and an alpha-magnet producing microbunches of a sub-mm length. Total radiated energy of a sub-millijoule per a microsecond radio frequency macropulse is demonstrated with flux more than ten micro-Joules per centimeter squared. With 1 THz filter the energy measured is about 1 microjoule and flux of a few micro-Joules per centimeter squared.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Integrating Experiments and Well Logs to Predict Caney Shale Static Mechanical Properties During Production with Supervised Machine Learning

Caney shale is one of the emerging oil reservoirs in Oklahoma. Understanding the impact of effective stress on its mechanical properties is critical for predicting hydraulic fracture geometry and overall hydrocarbon production. The objective of our study is to evaluate the impact of effective stress on the dynamic Young’s modulus using ultrasonic velocity measurements for Caney shale samples. A triaxial cell was utilized to measure ultrasonic (P-wave and S-wave) velocities for ten downhole Caney shale samples under various effective stresses to indirectly assess the impact of pore pressure change. The dynamic Young’s moduli estimated from these measurements were integrated with available conventional well logs (excluding sonic logs) and triaxial test results from Benge et al. (2021) to predict the static Young’s modulus using Random Forest (RF) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models. The results showed that the estimated dynamic Young’s moduli from ultrasonic measurements were higher than the corresponding static Young’s modulus of cores from the same vertical well at similar depths. With increasing effective stress, the dynamic Young’s modulus increased for all samples. The estimated dynamic-to-static correction factor tended to be higher in zones of high neutron porosity (PHIN) and low density compared to other zones. Finally, SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) for RF and XGBoost models identified depth, gamma ray (GR), and PHIN as key features for predicting the static Young’s modulus. This study enhances our understanding of the dynamic and static Young’s moduli for the Caney shale interval, as a function of effective stress and conventional well logs. The findings from this study can improve predictions of production throughout the well's lifespan by offering insights into the mechanical property degradation resulting from pore pressure depletion.

Kholy, Sherif M.↗

A WKB based preconditioner for the 1D Helmholtz wave equation

Frequency-domain full-wave solutions to the cold-plasma problem have become ubiquitous in the study of radio frequency power in fusion plasmas. However, recent efforts at extreme levels of geometric fidelity have revealed fundamental limits in the problem size that can be solved by typical sparse direct solver based methods. These limits are of particular importance in the 3D study of RF launchers, where the number of degrees of freedom required can exceed 100 million. In such cases, it would be advantageous to solve the system via iterative means, but due to the large null space of the curl-curl operator, the convergence properties of algorithms like GMRES are poor. Here we present a physics-based preconditioner in the form of a WKB solution and demonstrate the iterative solution to the frequency-domain Helmholtz problem in 1D for several cases ranging from satisfying the WKB approximation to strongly violating it.

Green, David↗