A two-year study of recirculating induction heavy ion accelerators as low-cost driver for inertial-fusion energy applications was recently completed. The projected cost of a 4 MJ accelerator was estimated to be about $500 M (million) and the efficiency was estimated to be 35%. The principal technology issues include energy recovery of the ramped dipole magnets, which is achieved through use of ringing inductive/capacitive circuits, and high repetition rates of the induction cell pulsers, which is accomplished through arrays of field effect transistor (FET) switches. Principal physics issues identified include minimization of particle loss from interactions with the background gas, and more demanding emittance growth and centroid control requirements associated with the propagation of space-charge-dominated beams around bends and over large path lengths. In addition, instabilities such as the longitudinal resistive instability, beam-breakup instability and betatron-orbit instability were found to be controllable with careful design.

Three distinct metrological operations are necessary to align a free-electron laser (FEL): the magnetic axis must be located, a straight line reference (SLR) must be generated, and the magnetic axis must be related to the SLR. This article begins with a review of the motivation for developing an alignment system that will assure better than IOO-pm accuracy in the alignment of the magnetic axis throughout an FEL. The 100-flm accuracy is an error circle about an ideal axis for 300 m or more. The article describes techniques for identifying the magnetic axes of solenoids, quadrupoles, and wiggler poles. Propagation of a laser beam is described to the extent of revealing sources of nonlinearity in the beam. Development of a straight-line reference based on the Poisson line, a diffraction effect, is described in detail. Spheres in a large-diameter laser beam create Poisson lines and thus provide a necessary mechanism for gauging between the magnetic axis and the SLR Procedures for installing FEL components and calibrating alignment fiducials to the magnetic axes of the components are also described. The Poisson alignment reference system should be accurate to 25 flm over 300 m, which is believed to be a factor-of-4 improvement over earlier techniques. An error budget shows that only 25% of the total budgeted tolerance is used for the alignment reference system, so the remaining tolerances should fall within the allowable range for PEL alignment.

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We have conducted three tests of a new pulsed power device called the full function test. These tests represented the culmination of an effort to establish a high energy pulsed power capability based on high explosive pulsed power (HEPP) technology. This involved an extensive computational modeling, engineering, fabrication, and fielding effort. The experiments were highly successful and a new U.S. record for magnetic energy was obtained.