Description: The ORION project is centered upon the construction of a state-of-the-art photoinjector in the NLCTA Hall at SLAC. As part of its commitment to lead the electron source major research component of ORION, the PBPL has constructed a 1.6 cell photoinjector gun and emittance compensation magnet for this facility, which has X-band linac sections to provide energy from 70 to 300 MeV. This injector will support very small emittance beams for laser acceleration experiments,as well as large charge, specially shaped beams (as in the Neptune dogleg experiments), for plasma wakefield acceleration and related concepts. Advanced photoinjector physics such as compression and coherent radiation processes are to be studied at ORION as well, with femtosecond-resolution diagnostics employed.
The ORION photoinjector is expected to begin operation in 2004. For more information, see the ORION home page.