THE technological platform

The technological platform is dedicated to R&D on superconducting cavities for high energy and high power future particle accelerators. It provides all the necessary equipment to prepare, condition, assemble and test superconducting RF cavities for projects in which IPN is involved.

Strong accelerating field gradients and high reliability are the main objectives of the R&D program conducted on this platform.
The effort is focused on the average energy part of the future accelerators by improving the performance and reliability of the Spoke cavities. Several versions of these cavities have been studied, implemented and tested. SUPRATECH has increased our ability to handle independently new versions of modules.

Composition OF THE platform

The platform includes :

• an etching laboratory, which the cavity surfaces treated in acidic baths, in order to eliminate all defects likely to generate electron spurious emissions.
  
• an ISO4 cleanroom, this high technology equipment (covering 80 m², 50m² of which are class10) is the essential link for the cleaning and assembly of superconducting cavities.
  
• an assembly hall, dedicated to the integration of the cryostats,
  
• two experimental halls, equipped with vertical and horizontal cryostats to test and RF validate the cavities.
  

To optimize the use of these infrastructures, the platform is equipped with : 

• RF power sources operating at 88 MHz, 350 MHz and 700 MHz frequencies,
  
• a station including a helium liquefier and its associated recovery and compression system ; this very expensive gas, the release into the atmosphere of which would be anti ecological and which is here carefully recycled.
  
• a 400 kW cooling system (HF sources)
  

For more details, locate areas on the diagram below and click ....

SupraTech Platform

GENESIS and financing

Spurred by IN2P3 (National Institute for Nuclear Physics and Particle Physics, CNRS) and IRFU (Research Laboratory on the Fundamental laws of the Universe, CEA), three laboratories combined their efforts to build the necessary infrastructures for the development of accelerating cavities (cryogenic installations, cleanrooms, etc. ), in the frame of SUPRATECH. The facilities are located on the sites of these three laboratories : IPN, LAL and IRFU. Their management is provided within the "GIS SUPRATECH" (Group of Scientific Interest) by representatives of the three financing institutions (Paris-Sud University - CNRS -CEA ) ; the GIS is open to other public or private organizations.

The state through the National Research Agency, Paris-Sud 11 University CNRS, CEA, local authorities (Ile de France Region, Essonne department) scientific programs lead by CNRS through PACEN, joint projects CNRS-CEA such as SPIRAL on the national level or EURISOL and EUROTRANS on the European level have all contributed to the installation of our platform.