Commissioning of SANAEM RFQ Accelerator

The former SANAEM RFQ is upgraded with a newly manufactured cavity, made of oxygen-free copper (OFC), having the capability of accelerating protons from 20 keV to 1.3 MeV. In the assembling of cavity vanes, flanges, etc., indium wire is preferred over the brazing process providing a more flexible and easy method for vacuum sealing. After assembling the cavity, argon plasma cleaning is performed for the final cleaning and RF pre-conditioning. Vacuum tests revealed that levels of 2·10⁻⁷ mbar could be achieved quite easily. RF power conditioning of the RFQ cavity is successfully completed with the observation of quite few sparks. In the commissioning tests with the proton beam, a magnetic analyzer is used to measure the energy of the particles. This paper presents the strategy and the results concerning the commissioning of the proton beam with special emphasis on the RFQ cavity.