Transport optimization and characterization of the 2kA AIRIX electron beam

The AIRIX induction accelerator is now operational. After completing the acceptance test of the entire machine, we have aligned the sixteen blocks of four cells, each using the very accurate HLS (Hydrostatic Leveling System) and WPS (Wire Positionning System) method. The beam transport optimization was made with a 1.92kA,60ns electron beam, accelerated from 3.8 to 19.2MeV. This procedure consisted of minimizing the beam envelope and beam break up (BBU) oscillations. Two specific campaigns using OTR measurements with a fast gated camera, validated the beam transport calculations,. The good agreement between the experimental results and theorical predictions are presented. We will also present the effects of the beam centering procedure. The last section adresses the work that will be done on the machine, to operate at higher current (up to 3.5 kA), to decrease BBU oscillations and to reduce the X-ray focal spot size.