Wide-aperture Faraday Cup for the High-Intensity Linear Proton Accelerator of the Project DARIA

One of the main problems for beam diagnostics in the projected linear proton accelerator for the DARIA compact neutron source is the high pulse and average beam power combined with a relatively low energy, that significantly limits the choice of possible diagnostic instruments and methods. For basic beam current measurements and tuning procedures in the low-energy part of the accelerator, a wide-aperture water-cooled Faraday cup was developed. This paper presents design features, estimations of thermal loads during typical operation and experimental results of the cup tests at a high-intensity proton beam, also the design features of such devices are described, considering the influence of the beam space charge on the measurement results.