OTR studies for the high charge CTF3 beam

The CTF3 (CLIC Test Facility 3) will produce 1.56µs long intense electron pulses. The unbunched 5.4A beam of the injector will have a transverse beam size ~1mm. After the buncher the current is reduced to 3.5A and the transverse size varies between a few hundred micrometers and one millimetre along the length of the linac. Calculations indicate that these beam parameters will impose an unbearable thermal load for the intercepting screens currently in use (scintillators and aluminium OTR foils). Graphite and SiC have been investigated as possible alternative materials for the OTR radiators. The possibility of replacing scintillating screens with OTR targets at the low energies of the injector has also been considered. A possible limitation in the use of such high temperature radiators has been identified; ions released from the heated target could focus further the beam with the risk of damaging the target itself and/or blowing up the beam. This would also affect the emittance measurement and would hinder any effort to detect head-tail phenomena. This paper gives the results of the theoretical estimations, and of the beam-based experiments.