Ampegon engineers completed the installation and commissioning of a 300kW solid-state 500 MHz RF amplifier system, on March 26th, 2021, for the NSLS-II Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), in New York State, USA.
The NSLS-II synchrotron accelerates a beam of electrons to almost light-speed to create various wavelengths of x-rays useful for scientific research at a host of experimental stations. It has been powered by 2x 320kW klystron amplifiers, providing 500MHz RF into accelerating cavities in the synchrotron ring since 2013. The RF provides an accelerating gradient within the cavities and keeps the electrons in the beam at the correct relativistic speed.
As part of a recent multi-year upgrade program, BNL contracted Ampegon to provide a third RF amplifier, but this time utilizing a fully solid-state topology. In this form, the amplifier consists of 4x 80kW amplifier stacks, each using a cavity combiner to combine the outputs of 64x dual RF amplifier modules. These four stacks are further combined using a BNL/Mega Industries combiner to supply 320kW RF into the synchrotron ring.
Ampegon RF Engineer, Bodo Fritsche, completed the project alongside BNL staff and was present as the system first ran at full power: “As far as we know, this is the biggest 500 MHz Solid State System in the world. Taking the system up to over 300kW output, knowing that this was the first time this power was reached with solid-state technology at this frequency, was incredibly exciting. To achieve 350kW briefly without an issue exceeded all expectations!”
Ampegon offers solid-state RF amplifiers at powers from 1.5kW to 320kW (CW) or 1.6MW (pulsed) using various different combining technologies to best-suit frequency and size requirements and can be custom-designed to meet specific technical requirements.
