High power, vacuum electronic, RF and microwave sources are based on similar physical principles and technological challenges as electron accelerators. A high quality electron gun provides a high brightness electron beam, which is then efficiently accelerated and passed through an interaction region where the maximum RF/microwave power is extracted, usually using inverse processes to those used in accelerators. These similarities are seen in the so-called 'two beam' accelerators, where the higher frequency accelerating electromagnetic field for the main accelerator beam is produced 'in situ' using a primary electron beam passing within the same structure and which has in turn been accelerated by lower frequency RF provided by more conventional RF sources, which themselves once again use similar processes. Laboratory experiments and numerical simulations will be presented of several new high power microwave sources which are relevant to the accelerator community as (i) they can provide higher power and/or higher frequency drivers for conventional RF accelerators (ii) some of the advances that underpin these new microwave sources can be applied in developing new higher accelerating-gradient accelerators.
Also included will be brief overviews of (a) the second phase of the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), in which eight Scottish Physics Departments are collaborating in their research and (b) an update on the Scottish Centre for the Application of Plasma-based Accelerators (SCAPA).
