Klystron Department

The SLAC Klystron Department is dedicated to the development and manufacturing of klystrons and microwave components for present and future accelerator programs. It is composed of approximately 20 engineers and physicists, supported by designers, technicians, and machinists. It maintains a facility equipped to produce and test pulsed multi-megawatt klystrons between 2 and 12 GHz, as well as CW megawatt-level UHF klystrons. It has a production capacity of several tubes per week. The Microwave Engineering group of the Department maintains all installed klystrons at SLAC and provides engineering oversight and maintenance for low-level RF systems in most of the operating accelerators and storage rings.

In addition to its klystron-oriented work, the department builds X-band high gradient accelerator structures in support of R&D studies for the Next Linear Collider program. In collaboration with the University of California, Davis, a research program is underway to produce mono-energetic X-rays via the Compton scattering of photons from a high quality electron beam. The Klystron Department and UC Davis are also collaborating on a number of US Air Force Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grants . The collaboration is aimed at conducting research on very high power microwave sources and their components. In the process, Stanford and UCD graduate students are trained in microwave tube technology.