Development of high power overmoded waveguide windows and components

Calabazas Creek Research, Inc. is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop very high power microwave windows and waveguide components for accelerator applications. The current effort is focused on supporting the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's (SLAC) efforts to develop the Next Linear Collider at 11.424 GHz. Waveguide components and windows are required for operation at power levels up to 600 MW in pulsed operation. SLAC is developing the Multimode Delay Line Distribution System (MDLDS) to generate 600 MW pulses for the accelerator by storing RF power from multiple klystrons and switching that power to the appropriate accelerator sections. The MDLDS uses several waveguide modes to perform this operation. The components are designed using several computational programs, including CASCADE, an advanced scattering matrix program that includes computer optimization and tolerance analysis.