Automatic Optimization of a Klystron Interaction Structure

The design of klystrons has long been a manual process guided by experience. However, with well-defined specifications and sufficiently rapid simulation methods, it is a good candidate process for automatic optimization techniques. In this paper, such a technique is evaluated and refined using klystron specific techniques, leading to several designs (with different tradeoffs between efficiency and size) each of a structure comparable with the SLAC B-factory klystrons. The most efficient of which, while only 1% more efficient, is 17.1% shorter.