Speaker
Description
CLARA at Daresbury Laboratory is a medium energy (250 MeV) electron beam facility, delivering high-brightness electron bunches to a wide range of user experiments exploring novel acceleration schemes, cancer therapy, and advanced diagnostics. CLARA is currently undergoing final beam commissioning after an extended period of technical systems commissioning in 2025. During this period, CLARA achieved many significant milestones, including first beam from a new caesium telluride (Cs$_2$Te) photocathode; detailed emittance and bunch length measurements; and beam delivery to the Full Energy Beam Exploitation (FEBE) user area. In addition, the facility hosted an initial round of “friendly” user experiments, which were selected to cover a broad range of science themes while exploiting the full capabilities of the CLARA accelerator. These first experiments required high-quality electron beams with up to 250 pC per bunch, repetition rates up to 100 Hz, and various longitudinal compression schemes. In this talk, we review milestones from CLARA commissioning, using detailed beam measurements to demonstrate the accelerator’s current performance. We describe beam delivery to each of the first user experiments, and outline preparations for even more challenging experiments that are planned for later in 2026.
| Presenting Author | Mark Johnson |
|---|---|
| Is the Presenting Author a PhD Student or Early Career Scientist ? | No |
| Area of research | Lepton accelerators (electron / muon / neutrino) |