Both slow and fast tuners are required in order to optimize the resonant frequency of particle accelerator cavities. The Energen slow tuner uses a MicroStep™ motor to elongate the cavity along its axis. The cavity is stretched by more than 2 mm, requiring a force of over 17.5 kN (3940 lbs). This results in a resonance peak shift of 160 kHz on a nominal resonance frequency of 1497 MHz. The tuner also demonstrated a stability of better than 5 Hz, (approximately 3.3 ppb). The force generated by the stepper motor is approximately 2600 N.

The advantages of this tuning system includes:

• Elimination of sliding or rotating penetrations through the vacuum cryostat
• Simplification of cryostat design and assembly
• Delivery of both coarse and fine tuning in a single device
• Zero-power position lock-in

See datasheet for detailed information.