The harmonic cavity is not powered directly, rather it is a passive system that will get its power from the main RF drive by interacting with the stored electron beam. Therefore, although the harmonic cavity will cause a dip in the RF waveform, it is negligible. There are several ways to reduce the current loss of intermediate energy, high brightness synchrotron radiation sources. Both a harmonic cavity and an electron motion coupler were used on the Tantalus ring. The harmonic cavity was chosen for Aladdin because it reduces the current loss without a significant loss in brightness while retaining the ability to be tuned out for time resolved measurements.
Challenges resulting from installing the harmonic cavity remain.
Although not expected, the cavity may cause injection to become more difficult. This problem would occur if the cavity cannot be completely tuned out. From the analysis that has been done, the benefits of a larger current-lifetime product outweigh the risks and it is expected that the cavity will be integrated into the ring and tested by the operators on schedule.