SAIC, San Diego, California
Scientific Solutions designed and fabricated a 14.5 GHz charge-breeder ECR source for the Texas A&M University Cyclotron facility. This charge-breeder source was designed as a charge-breeder from the start rather than as a conversion of an existing ECR system. In addition, the overall system was designed to be modular so that various components can be easily substituted to facilitate technology developments. This paper details the overall design, the design constraints, and reviews specific performance requirements that resulted in this particular system design.
*Current address: SAIC, 10740 Thornmint Road, San Diego, CA 92127
SSolutions, San Diego CA
Scientific Solutions developed an rf source capable of producing a variety of rf spectra for excitation of ECR plasmas at 2.45, 6.5, 14.5, 18.0, and 28.0 GHz. This device replaces the crystal oscillator in the rf chain and is essentially a software-defined radio transmitter that allows the user to select from a variety of rf spectral patterns via an Ethernet link. Two specific types of patterns were chosen for an initial series of tests: 1) a simultaneous multimode pattern comprised of a number rf-modes within a user-specified bandwidth and 2) a "chirp" spectral pattern comprised of a series of discrete frequencies where the chirp bandwidth, slew direction, and slew rate are user-selectable. The number of modes is a user-defined value between 1 and 1024. This paper describes the design of the rf circuit and its theory of operation. Initial results of our tests with the 6.4 and 14.5 GHz ECR sources at Texas A&M University and with the 14.5 GHz AECR-U source at the Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory are also presented.
*Current Address: SAIC, 10740 Thornmint Road, San Diego, CA 92127