It is proposed to design critical components, and to investigate required ion optical elements for a 3 million electron volt, 2 to 5 ampere direct current electron beam. The design of this system will be based on a vertical test Pelletron accelerator of the Van de Graaff type that we own and operate. In the proposed concept, an electron beam produced in the high voltage terminal of the Pelletron accelerator will be accelerated downwards to ground potential gaining 3 million volts of energy, focused and deflected 180 degrees upwards, decelerated to near zero energy, and collected in the high voltage terminal. The objective is to produce a design for critical components of a high current, high energy electron beam which can be transmitted through a series of magnetic deflections and then decelerated to near zero energy with loss of electrons of less than or equal to 1 in 10,000 and a total accelerator power dissipation of 18.5 kilowatts or less. A 3 million electron volt, 5 ampere electron beam produced at 100 percent efficiency using conventional techniques would require 15 megawatts of power. The concept to be developed here will produce such a beam which can be used for some important purposes with an energy expenditure lower by at least a factor of 800.The potential applications as described by the company: The anticipated result of the proposed development is the production of a design which would be directly applicable to construction of equipment which could be part of an antiproton phase space cooling system for proton-antiproton colliding beam experiments at Furmi National Accelerator Laboratory. In addition high energy, high direct-current electron beams appear to be very useful for free electron laser systems. Design and production of such electron beams for use with lasers could have significant commercial applications.
