Power conditioning of the RF cavities for ELETTRA

The cavities for the synchrotron light source Elettra have been conditioned at full power. The OFHC copper cavities have a smooth shape, working at 499.654 MHz. The conditioning has been performed in the laboratory with a prototype power plant. The RF power provided by the klystron amplifier is fed to the cavity by means of a coupling loop. The cavities have been conditioned starting from pulsed operation; the power and the duration of the pulse have then been raised till the requested CW gap voltage was reached. The whole conditioning procedure, starting from the bakeout of the cavities, and the test results are described.<
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