First high power experiments with the Dutch free electron maser

A free electron maser (FEM) has been built as a mm-wave source for applications on future fusion research devices such as ITER, the international tokamak experimental reactor [M. A. Makowski, F. Elio, and D. Loeser, April 97, Proc. 10th Workshop on ECE and ECRH, EC10, 549-559. World Scientific (1998)]. A unique feature of the Dutch fusion-FEM is the possibility to tune the frequency over the entire range from 130 to 260 GHz at an output power exceeding 1 MW. In the first phase of the project, a so-called inverse setup is used. The electron gun is mounted inside the high-voltage terminal. The entire beam line was tested successfully with extremely low loss current, lower than 0.05%. This included the accelerating structure up to 2 MV level and the transport through the undulator. First generation of mm-waves was achieved in October 1997. With an electron beam current around 8 A and an accelerator voltage of 1.76 IMV the mm-wave pulse starts after 3 mu s and lasts for 3 mu s, reaching a maximum saturated peak power level of more than 500 kW at a frequency of 200 GHz. Output power, start-up time, and frequency correspond well with simulation results. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics