SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Food irradiation technology has attracted more attention in the past decade given that it can provide a sustainable solution on how to address pathogen contamination in food. X-ray irradiation has several advantages compared to other irradiation technologies including superior penetrating quality compared to electron beams, and considerably larger dose rate compared to gamma rays. However, the low electron to x-ray conversion efficiency which ranges between 8-14% is a major drawback. In response to this problem, RadiaBeam proposes to develop an X-ray target system based on a multicell RF structure with energy recuperation to improve the electron to X-ray conversion efficiency for food irradiation applications. The proposed system will consist of a special RF driven target, formed by a series of accelerating cells with closed irises that will operate on the S-band frequency at 2856 MHz. The structure will be designed such that the closed irises are large transversely to place a high atomic number material such as Tantalum or Tungsten within the irises to generate the X-rays. The thickness of the target material and number of cells will be optimized so that the average electron scattering loss is compensated by the RF acceleration in the rf cells. As a result, an improved radiation spectrum will be obtained compared to a simple target, and therefore a higher practical electron-to-X-ray conversion efficiency.
