Amith Narayan

Amith Narayan is a Member of Technical Staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he works on accelerator RF systems at the Spallation Neutron Source. His technical interests include high-power RF systems, accelerator RF, RF-driven plasma ignition, H⁻ ion sources, accumulator ring RF systems, RF cavity tuning, RF controls, impedance matching, high-voltage RF isolation, EPICS controls integration, RF reference systems, and accelerator reliability.

Education and Early Career

Dr. Narayan received his B.E. in Telecommunications Engineering from R.V. College of Engineering, Bengaluru, India, in 2011, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2020. His doctoral work focused on high-efficiency megawatt-class RF power circuits for mobile ionospheric heating.

Before joining ORNL, he worked in the semiconductor industry at Wipro and AMD on wafer-level testing, mixed-signal test development, RTL debug, functional verification, and microprocessor design verification, including verification work on low-power AMD microprocessor cores used in major gaming-console platforms such as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Accelerator RF Work at ORNL

At ORNL, Dr. Narayan works on high-power RF systems for accelerator operations. His recent work includes development and testing of a pulsed 27 MHz RF plasma ignition system for the SNS H⁻ ion source. This work involved RF power delivery, amplifier evaluation, timing synchronization, impedance matching, high-voltage RF isolation, reflected-power mitigation, diagnostics, and plasma ignition testing.

By moving the starter-plasma RF approach from continuous-wave operation toward short, synchronized RF pulses, the work reduces average RF power, limits unnecessary RF and plasma activity outside the beam-production window, addresses dark-current effects associated with continuous starter-plasma operation, and improves overall ion source operation.

Accumulator Ring RF and Reference Systems

Dr. Narayan’s accelerator RF work also includes SNS accumulator ring RF systems for longitudinal beam control, including RF cavities, high-power RF hardware, power supplies, low-level RF controls, and dynamic cavity tuning. He contributes to RF reliability, cavity-system troubleshooting, controls integration, and tuning approaches that support beam-loading compensation and higher-power accelerator operation.

His additional technical work includes reference-line signal-level stability through environmental control and EPICS integration, with emphasis on RF/reference-signal monitoring, temperature and humidity monitoring, airflow control, Python automation, IOC integration, and operator-interface development.

Publications and Technical Direction

Dr. Narayan has authored or co-authored 26 technical publications in RF and microwave engineering, including high-power RF systems, accelerator RF, plasma ignition, and megawatt-class RF power circuits. His long-term technical interest is in high-power RF systems for next-generation high-intensity accelerators.

IEEE Service, Mentoring, and Recognition

Dr. Narayan is an IEEE Senior Member and is active in IEEE MTT-S, IEEE NPSS, and the IEEE Council on RFID. His IEEE volunteer service includes Senior Member evaluation activities, Region 3 involvement, and service as Electronic Information Committee Editor for the IEEE MTT-S Technical Coordination and Future Directions Committee. He also mentors students and early-career engineers in RF, accelerator systems, and engineering career development.

His recognitions include the George Corcoran Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Maryland Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Best Student Paper Award at the University of Maryland Graduate Research Interaction Day for “Constant Impedance Tunable IOT Power Extraction Circuit.”