Holger Neupert

Secondary electron yield on cryogenic surfaces as a function of physisorbed gases

Electron cloud is a serious limitation for the operation of particle accelerators with intense positively charged beams. It occurs if the secondary electron yield (SEY) of the beam-pipe surface is sufficiently high to induce an electron multiplication. At low surface temperatures, the SEY is strongly influenced by the nature of the physisorbed gases and by the corresponding surface coverage. These conditions occur in many accelerators operating with superconducting magnets and cold vacuum sections such as the LHC and RHIC. In this work, we investigated the variation of the SEY of copper, aluminium and electro-polished copper as a function of physisorbed N2, CO, CO2, CH4, Kr, C2H6 at cryogenic temperatures. The conditioning by electron bombardment of the surface after the physisorption of H2O on electro polished copper will also be presented. The results of the various gases are compared in order to find a rationale for the behaviour of the secondary electrons for the various adsorbates.

Carbon coating of the SPS dipole chambers

The Electron Multipacting (EM) phenomenon is a limiting factor for the achievement of high luminosity in accelerators for positively charged particles and for the performance of RF devices. At CERN, the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) must be upgraded in order to feed the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with 25 ns bunch spaced beams. At such small bunch spacing, EM may limit the performance of the SPS and consequently that of the LHC. To mitigate this phenomenon CERN is developing a carbon thin film coating with low Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) to coat the internal walls of the SPS dipoles beam pipes. This paper presents the progresses in the coating technology, the performance of the carbon coatings and the strategy for a large scale production.