Design of a driver for the cygnus x-ray source
Weidenheimer D., Corcoran P., Altes R., Douglas J., Nishimoto H., Smith I., Stevens R., Johnson DL., White R., Gustwiller J., Maenchen JE., Menge P., Carlson R., Fulton RD., Cooperstein G., Droemer D., Hunt E.
© 2002 IEEE. Cygnus is the prototype of a radiographic x-ray source leveraging existing hardware and designs to drive a rodpinch diode at 2.25 MV. This high-resolution x-ray source is being developed to support the Sub-Critical Experiments Program (SCE) at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), and as such employs a modular technology that is scaleable to higher voltages and can be readily deployed underground. The diode is driven by three Induction Voltage Adder (IVA) cells from the Sandia SABRE [1] accelerator, threaded by a positive polarity vacuum coax that extends 2 meters to the diode and is designed to operate below electron emission on the anodized outer electrode. The ∼40 ohm diode impedance requires a 40/32 or ∼4.5 ohm source to drive the three IVA cavities in parallel; a convenient impedance for a single water coax. The water coax is designed to function as a two-step impedance transformer as well as a long, passive water cable, accommodating several bends along its length. The latter feature allows independent positioning of the pulsed power driver, IVA and diode x-ray source. The long water coax is driven by a PFL originally developed for Sandia's Radiographic Integrated Test Stand (RITS) [2] and a lowinductance commercial Marx charges the single PFL. The accelerator design is a result of a cooperative effort by Titan-PSI and Maxwell (now collectively Titan-PSD) SNLA, LANL, NRL, and Bechtel-Nevada.