Superconducting RF High-Brightness Electron Sources: Pushing Accelerator Frontiers for the EIC and Beyond

by Irina Petrushina

Friday 31 Jan 2025, 12:45 → 13:45 America/New_York

D-122 (SBU Physics Building)

The push toward next-generation collider facilities, including the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), demands electron sources capable of producing intense, low-emittance beams. Superconducting RF (SRF) guns offer a promising avenue to fulfill these requirements, combining high accelerating gradients with continuous-wave operation for superior beam quality. In this seminar, I will share insights from my work on commissioning and operation of the SRF photoinjector at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), focusing on advances that have enabled new performance benchmarks. In recent years, the BNL SRF gun has demonstrated its ability to generate pristine quality electron beams, positioning it as a top contender for X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) applications with stringent beam requirements. Notably, it has achieved excellent ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions and minimal ion back-bombardment, as evidenced by the prolonged lifetime of CsK2Sb cathodes. These findings also underscore the gun’s potential for generating polarized beams, a key asset for nuclear and high-energy physics research.

I will then discuss how these achievements inform the future development of high-brightness electron sources. By applying novel cavity restoration techniques, exploring polarized beam generation, and integrating cross-departmental collaborations, we aim to elevate both the fundamental science and real-world applications of SRF technology.  By addressing current limitations and capitalizing on recent breakthroughs, SRF guns can usher in a new era of high-brightness beam sources for nuclear physics, high-energy physics, and beyond. This talk will illustrate how these efforts directly support the future collider designs, and broader accelerator science endeavors, providing exciting research and training opportunities for students and faculty alike.

Petrushina_Seminar_20250131.pdf

Videorecording (SBU-login needed)