Design of 10 MeV electron linear accelerator for space environment simulation

A compact 10 MeV S-band irradiation electron linear accelerator (linac) was developed to simulate electronic radiation in outer space and perform electron irradiation effect tests on spacecraft materials and devices. According to the requirements of space environment simulation, the electron beam energy can be adjusted in the range from 3.5 to 10 MeV, and the average current can be adjusted in the range from 0.1 to 1 mA. The linac should be capable of providing beam irradiation over a large area of 1 m² with a uniformity greater than 90% and a scanning rate of 100 Hz. A novel method was applied to achieve such a high beam scanning rate by combining a kicker and a scanning magnet. Based on this requirement, a design for the 10 MeV linac is proposed with an RF power pulse repetition rate of 500 Hz; it includes a thermal cathode electron gun, a bunching-accelerating section, and a scanning transport line. The detailed physical design and dynamic simulation results of the proposed 10 MeV electron linac are presented in this paper.