A Magnetostrictive Tuning System for Particle Accelerators

Energen, Inc. has designed, built, and demonstrated several fast and slow tuners based on its magnetostrictive actuators and stepper motor. These tuners are designed for Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) cavities, which are important structures in particle accelerators that support a wide spectrum of disciplines, including nuclear and high-energy physics and free electron lasers (FEL). In the past two years, Energen’s work has focused on magnetostrictive fast tuners for microphonics and Lorentz detuning compensation on elliptical-cell and spoke-loaded cavities. These tuners were custom designed to meet specific requirements, which included a few to 100 micron stroke range, hundreds to kilohertz operation frequency, and cryogenic temperature operation in vacuum or liquid helium. These tuners have been tested in house and at different laboratories, such as DESY, Argonne National Lab, and Jefferson Lab. Some recent results are presented in this paper.