Commissioning of X-LAB: A very high-capacity X-band RF test stand facility at the University of Melbourne

Abstract

The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) beam-based acceleration baseline uses high-gradient travelling wave accelerating structures at a frequency of 12 GHz. In order to prove the performance of these structures at high peak power and short pulse width RF, two klystron-based test facilities will be put in operation this year. The first Southern Hemisphere X-band Laboratory for Accelerators and Beams (X-LAB) is currently being commissioned at the University of Melbourne, it will house half of the CERN X-band test stand XBOX3, which has been renamed Mel-BOX. Like XBOX3, Mel-BOX employs a novel means of combining high average power but relatively low peak power (6 MW) klystron units to direct power ..