Breakdown phenomena in high power klystrons
In the course of developing new high peak power klystrons at SLAC, high electric fields in several regions of these devices have become an important source of vacuum breakdown phenomena. In addition, a renewed interest in breakdown phenomena for nanosecond pulse, multi-megavolt per centimeter fields has been sparked by recent R and D work in the area of gigawatt RF sources. The most important regions of electrical breakdown are in the output cavity gap area, the RF ceramic windows, and the gun ceramic insulator. The details of the observed breakdown in these regions, experiments performed to understand the phenomena and solutions found to alleviate the problems will be discussed. Recently experiments have been performed on a new prototype R and D klystron. Peak electric fields across the output cavity gaps of this klystron exceed 2 MV/cm. The effect of peak field duration (i.e. pulse width) on the onset of breakdown have been measured. The pulse widths varied from tens of nanoseconds to microseconds. Results from these experiments will be presented. The failure of ceramic RF windows due to multipactor and puncturing was an important problem to overcome in order that our high power klystrons would have a useful life expectancy. Consequently many studies and tests were made to understand and alleviate window breakdown phenomena. Some of the results in this area, especially the effects of surface coatings, window materials and processing techniques and their effects on breakdown will be discussed. Another important source of klystron failure in the recent past at SLAC has been the puncturing of the high voltage ceramic insulator in the gun region. A way of alleviating this problem has been found although the actual cause of the puncturing is not yet clear. The ''practical'' solution to this breakdown process will be described and a possible mechanism for the puncturing will be presented. 9 refs., 5 figs., 3 tabs.
- Research Organization:
- Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park, CA (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00515
- OSTI ID:
- 5214270
- Report Number(s):
- SLAC-PUB-4546; CONF-880687-3; ON: DE88007882
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 13. international symposium on discharges and electrical insulation in vacuum, Paris, France, 27 Jun 1988
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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