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ELI-NP gamma beam system (GBS) is a linac based gamma-source in construction in Magurele (RO) by the European consortium EuroGammaS led by INFN. Photons with tunable energy, from 0.2 to 19.5 MeV, and with intensity and brilliance beyond the state of the art, will be produced by Compton back-scattering between a high quality electron beam (up to 740 MeV) and an intense laser pulse at 100 Hz repetition rate. Production of very intense photon flux with narrow bandwidth requires multi-bunch operation and laser recirculation at the interaction point. In this paper, the main technological developments carried out by the EuroGammaS consortium for the generation of the ELI-NP gamma beam will be described with a special emphasis on the electron linac technology, such as: RF-gun and C-band accelerating structures design fabrication and tests; low level RF (LLRF) and synchronization systems specifications and development. Finally, the laser recirculation apparatus design is briefly described and first results reported., Proceedings of the 29\textsuperscript{th} Linear Accelerator Conf., LINAC2018, Beijing, China

The energy upgrade of the SPARC photo-injector from 160 to more than 260 MeV will be done by replacing a low gradient 3m S-Band structure with two 1.4m high gradient C-band structures. The structures are travelling wave, constant impedance sections, have symmetric waveguide input couplers and have been optimized to work with a SLED RF input pulse. A prototype with a reduced number of cells has been fabricated and tested at high power in KEK (Japan) giving very good performances in terms of breakdown rates (10^6 bpp/m) at high accelerating gradient (>50 MV/m). The paper illustrates the design criteria of the structures, the fabrication procedure and the high power RF test results.

R&D activity on Cu photocathodes is under development at the SPARC_LAB test facility to fully characterize each stage of the photocathode “life” and to have a complete overview of the photoemission properties in high brightness photo-injectors. The nano(n)-machining process presented here consists in diamond milling, and blowing with dry nitrogen. This procedure reduces the roughness of the cathode surface and prevents surface contamination introduced by other techniques, such as polishing with diamond paste or the machining with oil. Both high roughness and surface contamination cause an increase of intrinsic emittance and consequently a reduction of the overall electron beam brightness. To quantify these effects, we have characterized the photocathode surface in terms of roughness measurement, and morphology and chemical composition analysis by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) techniques. The effects of n -machining on the electron beam quality have been also investigated through emittance measurements before and after the surface processing technique. Finally, we present preliminary emittance studies of yttrium thin film on Cu photocathodes.

A new era of laser based plasma accelerators is emerging following the commissioning of many high power laser facilities around the world. Extremely short (tens of fs) laser pulses with energy of multi-joules level are available at these newly built facilities. Here we describe the new 220 TW FLAME facility. In particular we discuss the laser system general layout, the main measurements on the laser pulse parameters, the underground target area. Finally we give an overview of the first results of the Self-Injection Test Experiment (SITE), obtained at a low laser energy. This initial low laser energy experimental campaign was necessary for the validation of the radio-protection shielding (Esposito, 2011 [1]) we discuss here. With respect to our preliminary configuration, with a pulse duration of 30 fs and a focusing optic of F/15, we discuss here the minimum laser energy requirements for electron acceleration and the forward transmitted optical radiation. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.