Test of very fast kicker for TESLA damping ring

We describe a very fast kicker with a unique combination of high repetition rate and short pulse width. Constructionally, the device is a symmetrical counter traveling wave stripline kicker fed by a semiconductor high-voltage pulse generator. Experimentally the tested kicker has a full pulse width of about 7 ns, 1.4 MHz repetition rate and maximum kick strength of the order of 3 G/spl middot/m. Recent achievements in high-voltage semiconductor field-effect-transistors (FET) technology and goal-specific optimization of the kicker parameters allow a many-fold increase of the strength, and the kicker can be very useful tool for bunch-by-bunch injection/extraction and other accelerator applications.