High-power Piezoelectric Tuner Driver for Lorentz Force Compensation

TL;DR

This paper presents a high-power piezoelectric tuner driver designed for Lorentz force compensation in SRF cavities, optimized for MicroTCA.4 systems, with initial laboratory testing demonstrating its effectiveness.

Contribution

It introduces a novel high-power amplifier design for piezo actuators tailored for MicroTCA.4, including architecture comparisons and initial test results.

Findings

Successful laboratory testing of the two-channel driver

Optimized design considering power and cooling constraints

Potential for improved Lorentz force compensation

Abstract

Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) cavities are used in modern accelerators to efficiently accelerate particles. When cavity is supplied with pulsed RF field it undergoes a mechanical strain due to the Lorentz force. The resulting deformation causes dynamic detuning whose amplitude depends on mechanical properties of the cavity, RF pulse rate and their profile. This effect causes considerable loss of acceleration performance. Therefore, it is usually actively compensated, most commonly with fast piezoelectric actuators. MicroTCA.4 standard was developed to accommodate control and data acquisition electronic systems of large-scale physics applications. The paper presents a design of high-power amplifier implemented using the MicroTCA.4 technology. The design of the driver was optimized for driving large-capacitance piezo actuators. Several possible architectures of the driver are presented and compared, taking into consideration the power and cooling limitations of MicroTCA.4. The design of a two-channel piezo driver and its initial laboratory test results are also discussed.