High Power RF amplifiers

A short historical overview: ESRF developed and built the first cavity combiner that combines the power from 132 RF power modules in one step and up to 90 kW in CW at 352 MHz. The technique was later applied for the implementation of the 1.6 MW pulsed SSPA for the upgrade of the 200 MHz RF system of the SPS at CERN. In these applications, both SSPA and cavity combiners turned out to be the enabling factor for highly compact and energy-efficient RF power generation alternatives.

We believe that solid-state amplifiers using cavity combiners will be more and more implemented in future applications requiring up to a few MW of RF power and we support the development of such amplifiers for a possible replacement of vacuum tube amplifiers.

FREIA has an outstanding track record in solid-state power amplifier development and recently started to work on cavity combiner technologies in a VR infrastructure project. The SSPA technology developed at FREIA is crucial for future high-power amplifiers, particularly those applicable in particle accelerators. Such amplifiers hold promise for diverse applications, from directly accelerating particles at several hundred kilowatts to serving as drivers for Klystrons and other vacuum tubes at lower, but still substantial power levels. Notably, FREIA contributes to the success of accelerator projects like AWAKE (Advanced Proton Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment) and I.FAST projects, both with CERN.

Activities would open for new and strong collaborations with other research institutes and industry at national and international levels.