Project Title: An Inexpensive High-Current Betatron using Fixed Field Alternating Focusing and New Low-Loss Magnetic Materials

PI: Salime Boucher, boucher@radiabeam.com

High-energy electron sources are finding a growing number of applications in industry, medicine and national security applications. However current state-of-the-art devices for generating high-power, high-energy electron beams are large, expensive, and unreliable.

RadiaBeam Technologies is currently developing a novel type of betatron (circular induction) accelerator, the Radiatron, with help from a DOE SBIR grant. The Radiatron will be an affordable high average power source of electrons in the range of 1 – 10 MeV. It is a modern rethinking of the betatron, a type of induction accelerator (using no RF), with two key improvements: the deployment of a Fixed Field Alternating Gradient (FFAG) focusing scheme; and the use of modern, low loss magnetic materials. In combination, they increase the average current possible in the betatron by > 10 times, allowing it to match the higher-power capability of RF accelerators at a fraction of the cost.

RadiaBeam is currently fabricating the prototype (5 MeV) Radiatron, to be commissioned in Summer 2008. Recently, the project has been joined by another industrial collaborator, Ion Beam Applications SA, to assist with the completion of the prototype, and to bring a commercial version of the Radiatron to market in the near future.