A new test stand for radio-frequency (RF) couplers is operating at the French Laboratoire de l’Accélérateur Linéaire (LAL, CNRS/IN2P3) in Orsay. The facility, which was constructed and equipped within the framework of a co-operation agreement between the IN2P3 and DESY, was officially inaugurated on 7 July, in the presence of Michel Spiro, director of the IN2P3, and Albrecht Wagner, chairman of the DESY Directorate. It includes a class 10 cleanroom, a vacuum furnace, a system for the production of ultra-clean water, and a 5 mW modulator/klystron ensemble. The test stand has been built for the preparation and conditioning of high-power RF couplers for the TESLA project.
The international TESLA collaboration currently comprises 49 institutes from 12 countries, which are working together under the leadership of DESY to develop the technology for a superconducting linear accelerator. This accelerator technology will provide the basis for two major projects: a free-electron laser for X-ray radiation (XFEL) that is to be built through European collaboration, and an electron-positron linear collider (TESLA), which is under study as an international project. The superconducting linear collider would require around 20,000 of the RF couplers being tested at Orsay. The same couplers would also be used on the X-ray free-electron laser. The first high-power tests of prototype couplers in Orsay began in early spring this year.
