Wednesday, September 21, 2005

High voltage

This is the storage ring klystron at the Advanced Light Source (the ALS is a synchrotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab). A klystron is a type of microwave amplifier. It produces a stream of electrons, which is intersected by a low-energy microwave signal. This passes through a waveguide, which induces a high-energy microwave signal. The microwave signal travels along the waveguide and enters the storage ring, where it is used to help maintain the energy of the beam.

In the photo from left to right, you can see:
  • The power supply (in the brown enclosure)
  • The klystron (the stack with the orange cylinders)
  • The waveguide (the blue and silver rectangular conduit)

How high is the voltage? Your car battery produces 12 volts of DC power. The klystron power supply pictured here produces 60KV - that's 5,000 times the juice flowing out of a car battery!

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