Towards a Multi TeV Linear Collider: Drive Beam Generation With CTF3

The 3 TeV compact linear collider, CLIC, foresees an RF source based on a high current drive beam running parallel with the main linac. To generate this drive beam of very high instantaneous power a sophisticated complex consisting of a fully beam-loaded linac and several stages of beam compression is used. Although this scheme is very promising in terms of cost and power efficiency, it needs demonstration in a scaled version before construction of CLIC can be envisaged. This is the aim of the CLIC Test Facility CTF3, built by an international collaboration. CTF3 is constructed and exploited in several phases. Here we report present status, experimental achievements and future plans for CTF3.