Status and Future Prospects of SRF gun developments

Most of the proposed electron accelerator projects for FELs, ERLs, or 4th generation light sources require electron beams with an unprecedented combination of high-brightness, low emittance and high average current. In all of the projects photo guns will be applied: DC-photoguns, normal conducting RF photoguns (NC-guns), and superconducting RF photoguns (SRF-guns). While the concepts of DC- and NC-guns are well proofed, the SRF gun development still possesses a high risk. Challenges are the thermal and contaminant isolation needed between the cathode and superconducting cavity, the choice of the right photocathode and its life time, the difficulty of coupling high-average power into the gun, and beam excitation of higher order cavity modes. But in combination with SRF-linacs, the SRF-guns are best solution for high current and CW operation is simply possible. Thus, several R&D projects of SRF-gun have been launched. The talk will give an overview of the history and progress of the SRF-gun development. In detail the technical concept, performance, and status of the Rossendorf superconducting rf gun project, a collaboration of BESSY, DESY, MBI and FZR, will be presented.