Preparing to provide NML's electron beam in 2013 ||Fermilab AD
employees recently completed the assembly of the electron gun in
NML. Photo: Jerry Leibfritz, AD| NML is a warehouse abuzz with
humming electrical racks, hundreds of circuit boards and an
enclosed laser room, which requires special training to enter.
At the center of it all is the electron gun, which, if all goes
well, will fire its first electron beam early next year.
Providing electron beam is an essential part of the laboratory's
advanced accelerator R&D program, which includes testing
superconducting radio-frequency cryomodules. The cryomodules are
a key component of Project X, one of the laboratory's principal
proposed projects. They will provide powerful electromagnetic
fields that accelerate particle beams. To ensure the technology
of these cryomodules is as efficient as possible, scientists
will soon begin testing them using the laboratory's new electron
gun. The gun itself is a meter-long copper tube, but the many
adjoining components tha