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All over Run 2, the LHC beam-induced heat load on the cryogenic system exhibited a wide scattering along the ring. Studies ascribed the heat source to electron cloud build-up, indicating an unexpected high Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) of the beam screen surface in some LHC regions. The inner copper surface of high and low heat load beam screens, extracted during the Long Shutdown 2, was analysed. On the low heat load ones, the surface was covered with the native Cu2O oxide, while on the high heat load ones CuO dominated at surface, and it exhibited a very low carbon coverage. Such chemical modifications increase the SEY and inhibit a proper conditioning of the affected surfaces. Following this characterisation, the mechanisms for CuO build-up in the LHC beam pipe were investigated on a newly commissioned cryogenic system allowing electron irradiation, surface chemical characterisation by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and SEY measurements on samples held below 15 K. In parallel, curative solutions against the presence of CuO in the LHC beam screens were explored, which could be implemented in-situ to recover a proper conditioning and lower the beam-induced heat load., Proceedings of the 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2022, Bangkok, Thailand

During CERN’s LS2, several upgrades were performed to beam intercepting devices in the framework of the HL-LHC Project. Upgraded equipment includes two internal beam dumps (TDIS) intended for machine protection located at the injection points from the SPS to the LHC. These two devices have been assembled, tested, and installed around LHC Point 2 and Point 8 and are currently ready to get commissioned with the beam. They are 5.8m-long, three-module-segmented vacuum chambers, with large aperture to accommodate the injected and circulating beam and equipped with absorbing materials, These comprise graphite and higher Z alloys that are embedded on sub-assemblies reinforced with back-stiffeners made of TZM. The current contribution covers three main matters. First, it details the TDIS design and its key technical features. The second topic discussed is the outcome of an experiment where a prototype module was tested under high-energy beam impacts at CERN’s HiRadMat facility. To conclude it is presented the return of experience from the pre-series construction, validation and installation in the LHC tunnel., Proceedings of the 12th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2021, Campinas, SP, Brazil

Within the LHC Injector Upgrade (LIU) project, the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) needs to be upgraded to inject into the LHC higher intensity and brighter 25-ns bunch spaced beams. To mitigate the Electron Multipacting (E.M.) phenomenon, a well-known limiting factor for high-intensity positively charged beams, CERN developed carbon coatings with a low Secondary Electron Yield (SEY). During the 2016 2017 year-end technical stops, such coatings were deposited on the inner wall of the vacuum chambers of some SPS quadrupole and dipole magnets by a dedicated in-situ setup. A much larger scale deployment was implemented during the Long Shutdown 2 (2019-2020) to coat all beam pipes of focussing quadrupoles (QF) and their adjacent short straight sections. In this contribution, we remind the motivation of the project, and present the results and the quality control of the carbon coating campaign during the latter phase of implementation., Proceedings of the 12th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2021, Campinas, SP, Brazil

During the second operational run of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) a bunch spacing of 25 ns was used for the first time for luminosity production. With such a spacing, electron cloud effects are much more severe than with the 50-ns spacing, which had been used in the previous run. Beam-induced conditioning of the beam chambers mitigated the e-cloud formation to an extent that allowed an effective exploitation of 25 ns beams. Nevertheless, even after years of conditioning, e-cloud effects remained very visible, affecting beam stability and beam quality, and generating strong heat loads on the beam screens of the superconducting magnets with puzzling features. In preparation for the High Luminosity LHC upgrade, remarkable progress has been made in the modeling of the e-cloud formation and of its influence on beam stability, slow losses and emittance blow up, as well as in the understanding of the underlying behavior of the beam-chamber surface. In this contribution, we describe the main experimental observations from beam operation, the outcome of laboratory analysis conducted on beam screens extracted after the run, and the main advancements in the modeling of these phenomena., Proceedings of the 12th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2021, Campinas, SP, Brazil

All over Run 2, the LHC beam-induced heat load exhibited a wide scattering along the ring. Studies ascribed the heat source to electron cloud build-up, indicating an unexpectedly high Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) of the beam screen surface in some LHC regions. During the Long Shutdown 2, the beam screens of a low and a high heat load dipole were extracted. Their inner copper surface was analysed in the laboratory to compare their SEY and surface composition. While findings on the low heat load beam screens are compatible with expectations from laboratory studies of copper conditioning and deconditioning mechanisms, an extremely low carbon amount and the presence of CuO (non-native surface oxide) are observed on the high heat-load beam screens. The azimuthal distribution of CuO correlates with the density and energy of electron impingement. Such chemical modifications increase the SEY and inhibit the full conditioning of affected surfaces. This work shows a direct correlation between the abnormal LHC heat load and the surface properties of its beam screens, opening the door to the development of curative solutions to overcome this critical limitation., Proceedings of the 12th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2021, Campinas, SP, Brazil

Pulsed laser processing of vacuum component surfaces is a promising method for electron cloud mitigation in particle accelerators. By generating a hierarchically structured surface, the escape probability of secondary electrons is reduced. The choice of laser treatment parameters ��� such as laser power, scanning speed and line distance ��� has an influence on the resulting surface morphology as well as on its performance. The impact of processing parameters on the surface properties of copper is investigated by Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) measurements, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), ablation depth measurements in an optical microscope and particle release analysis. Independent of the laser wavelength (532nm and 1064nm), it was found that the surface morphology changes when varying the processing parameters. The ablation depth increases and the SEY reduces with increasing laser fluence. The final application requires the capability to treat tens of meters of vacuum pipes. The limiting factors of this type of surface treatment for the applicability in particle accelerators are discussed.

The High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) project aims at extending the operability of the LHC by another decade and increasing by more than a factor of ten the integrated luminosity that the LHC will have collected by the end of Run 3. This will require doubling the beam intensity and reducing the transverse beam size compared to those of the LHC design. The higher beam brightness poses new challenges for machine safety, due to the large energy of 700 MJ stored in the beams, and for beam stability, mainly due to the collimator contribution to the total LHC beam coupling impedance. A rich research program was therefore started to identify suitable materials and collimator designs, not only fulfilling impedance reduction requirements but also granting adequate beam-cleaning and robustness against failures. The use of thin molybdenum coatings on a molybdenum&ndash, graphite substrate has been identified as the most promising solution to meet both collimation and impedance requirements, and it is now the baseline choice of the HL-LHC project. In this work we present the main results of the coating characterization, in particular addressing the impact of coating microstructure on the electrical resistivity with different techniques, from Direct Current (DC) to GHz frequency range.

The high luminosity electron-positron collider FCC-ee is part of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study at CERN and it has been designed to cover the beam energy range from 45.6 GeV to 182.5 GeV to study the properties of the Higgs boson and other particles. Electron cloud build up simulations on the Z resonance revealed the necessity of minimising the Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) of the pipe walls by applying a Ti-Zr-V Non-Evaporable Getter (NEG) coating in the entire ring. Beam dynamics simulations at 45.6 GeV pointed out that minimising the thickness of this layer is mandatory to reduce the resistive wall (RW) impedance, thus increasing the single bunch instability thresholds and ensuring beam stability during operation. However, reducing the coating thickness can affect the performance of the material and therefore the SEY. For this reason, an extensive measurement campaign was performed at CERN to characterise NEG thin films with thicknesses below 250 nm in terms of activation performance and SEY measurements. This paper also presents the FCC-ee longitudinal impedance model which includes all the current machine components., Proceedings of the 62th ICFA ABDW on High Luminosity Circular e$^+$e$^-$ Colliders, eeFACT2018, Hong Kong, China

The LHC accelerating RF system consists of two cryomodules per beam, each containing four single-cell niobium sputtered 400.8 MHz superconducting cavities working at 4.5 K and an average accelerating voltage of 2 MV. The paper summarises the experience, availability and evolution of the system within 10 years of operation. The lessons learned from the successful replacement and re-commissioning of one cryomodule with a spare module, and the recent re-test of the originally installed module on the test stand are also included. Finally, a review of currently launched spare cavity production and long-term developments are presented., Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on RF Superconductivity, SRF2019, Dresden, Germany

Electron cloud effects are one of the most critical aspects for the LHC and the future circular colliders. In the frame of the electron-positron collider FCC-ee, an estimation of the electron cloud build up in the machine will be discussed in this paper. A preliminary evaluation of the heat load in the arc components and interaction region magnets will be presented, together with possible mitigation strategies., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

The Quarter Wave Resonator (QWR) cavities for HIE-ISOLDE project at CERN have entered their ending phase of production. Some R&D is still required to improve the uniformity of the Nb layer thickness on the cavity surface. In order to improve this behaviour one approach which has been proposed is to replace the single cathode with a double cathode and test the suitability of different deposition techniques. With this change it is possible to control the plasma and power distribution separately for the inner and outer part of cavity and thereby potentially improve film uniformity throughout the cavity and coating duration. In this study a comparison between the deposition rates obtained using a single cathode and a double cathode using Direct Current (DC)-bias diode sputtering, DC-magnetron sputtering (DCMS) and Pulsed DC-magnetron sputtering (PDCMS) is presented. The morphology of the thin film samples were compared using Focused Ion Beam (FIB) cross section milling and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis., Proceedings of the 18th Int. Conf. on RF Superconductivity, SRF2017, Lanzhou, China

Aiming at doubling the beam intensity and reducing the beam emittance, significant modifications of the LHC and its injector chain will take place during Long Shutdown 2 (LS2), starting from 2019. The LIU project (LHC Injector Upgrade), in the specific, touches Linac4, the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB), the Proton Synchrotron (PS), the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) as well as the heavy ion chain. During LS2, important changes will take place mainly in the Long Straight Sections of the SPS to host a newly conceived dumping system, upgraded RF cavities and upgraded extraction channels. Additionally, the vacuum chambers of the main bending and focusing magnets as well as vacuum drifts will be coated with amorphous carbon in order to reduce the dynamic pressure effects induced by multipacting. The modifications to the different vacuum sectors will be described in details as well as the impact on operation of amorphous carbon coated sectors that have been already deposited., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

The LHC operation has proven that the electron cloud could be a significant limiting factor in machine performance, in particular for future High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) beams. Electron clouds, generated by electron multipacting in the beam pipes, leads to beam instabilities and beam-induced heat load in cryogenic systems. Laser Engineered Surface Structures (LESS) is a novel surface treatment which changes the morphology of the internal surfaces of vacuum chambers. The surface modification results in a reduced secondary electron yield (SEY) and, consequently, in the eradication of the electron multipacting. Low SEY values of the treated surfaces and flexibility in choosing the laser parameters make LESS a promising treatment for future accelerators. LESS can be applied both in new and existing accelerators owing to the possibility of automated in-situ treatment. This approach has been developed and optimised for the LHC beam screens in which the electron cloud has to be mitigated before the HL-LHC upgrade. We will present the latest steps towards the implementation of LESS., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

As part of the LHC Injector Upgrade (LIU) project, the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) must be upgraded in order to inject in the LHC 25 ns bunch spaced beams of higher intensity. To mitigate the Electron Multipacting (EM) phenomenon in the SPS, CERN developed thin film carbon coatings with a low Secondary Electron Yield (SEY). The development went from coating small samples, up to coating of 6 m long vacuum chambers directly installed in the magnets. To deposit the low SEY amorphous carbon (aC) film on the vacuum chamber inner wall of SPS ring components, a modular hollow cathode train was designed. The minimization of the logistical impact requires a strategy combining in-situ and ex-situ coating, depending on the type of components. To validate the implementation strategy of the aC thin films and the in-situ coating process along the 7 km long SPS beamline, approximately 2 cells of B-type bending dipoles and 9 focussing quadrupoles are foreseen to be treated with the aC coating during the Extended Year End Technical Stop (EYETS) 2016-2017. We will discuss the coating technique and evaluate both the implementation process and the resulting coating performance., Proceedings of the 8th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2017, Copenhagen, Denmark

The development of Electron Multipacting (EM) in high intensity particle accelerators depends, amongst others, on the Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) of surfaces facing the beam. In-situ studies of electron clouds in particle accelerators must cope with operation schedule and other technical constrains. To overcome these difficulties, CERN implemented a Multipactor test bench, where EM is generated by Radio-Frequency (RF), using the beam pipes as a coaxial resonators. This tool was already successfully used to assess the effectiveness of low SEY carbon coatings on dipoles of the SPS at CERN and to study the conditioning dynamics of beam pipes. In this paper we present the development of an in-house built Retarding Field Energy Analyser (RFEA) to measure the Electrons Energy Distribution Function (EEDF) in the Multipactor test bench. The design of the electrodes was based on simulations in order to optimize sensitivity and energy resolution. The setup was tested with an electron gun at different energies before insertion in the Multipactor test bench. The evolution of the EEDF is measured at different RF powers. Feasibility to perform measurements in the machine is discussed., Proceedings of the 7th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2016, Busan, Korea

The drive beam of CLIC requires unusually high peak and average currents which is challenging for the electron source. As an alternative to the thermionic electron gun foreseen in the baseline design, a photoinjector option is under study at CERN using the PHIN photoinjector, which was designed for a bunch charge of 2.3 nC and 1200 ns train length. During operation with nominal train length in 2014, a large pressure increase in the vacuum system, attributed to a heating of the Faraday cup, caused a degradation of the photocathode. To overcome this problem a vacuum window has been installed to separate the Faraday cup from the rest of the vacuum system. In addition the train length has been further increased to 1600 ns to advance the beam parameters towards CLIC requirements. In this paper recent improved photocathode lifetime measurements carried out under these new conditions will be presented and compared with earlier measurements. Furthermore, the utilized Cs2Te cathode has been analyzed with X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) before and after its usage in PHIN to get a better understanding of photocathode surface deterioration effects, which will also be discussed., Proceedings of the 7th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2016, Busan, Korea

CERN has succeeded in producing carbon coatings that eradicate electron cloud in accelerators without any beam conditioning or in situ heating. Investing about 1 MCHF and dedicating 31 FTE (28 man-years, staff and associate members) in 9 years in the framework of LIU-SPS, CERN has increased: technological competences in thin-film coatings, worldwide visibility in surface characterisation, and capability in electron cloud measurement. Future projects are still benefiting from such an investment.

In the framework of the LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU) program, it is foreseen to take all the necessary measures to avoid electron cloud effects in the CERN-SPS. This can be achieved by either relying on beam induced scrubbing or by coating the vacuum chambers with intrinsically low Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) material over a large fraction of the ring. To clearly establish the potential of beam induced scrubbing, and to eventually decide between the two above options, an extensive scrubbing campaign is taking place at the SPS. Ten days in 2014 and two full weeks in 2015 are devoted to machine scrubbing and scrubbing qualification studies. This paper summarizes the main findings in terms of scrubbing efficiency and reach so far, addressing also the option of using a special doublet beam and its implication for LHC., Proceedings of the 6th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2015, Richmond, VA, USA

R&D on photocathodes takes place at CERN within the CLIC (Compact Linear Collider) project. Photocathodes are produced as thin films on Oxygen Free copper substrate using a co-deposition technique, and characterized in a dedicated laboratory with a DC photo-electron gun. A new UHV carrier vessel compatible with CERN’s XPS (X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) analysis equipment has been commissioned and is used to transport photocathodes from the production laboratory to perform a systematic study of different compounds used as photoemissive materials. In this paper photocathodes used in a RF photoinjector will be characterized and the correlation of their surface properties with their performance will be investigated., Proceedings of the 6th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2015, Richmond, VA, USA

MAX IV is presently under construction at Lund, Sweden, and the first beam for the production of synchrotron radiation is expected to circulate in 2016. The whole set of 3-GeV ring beam pipes is coated with Ti-Zr-V Non Evaporable Getter (NEG) thin film in order to fulfil the average pressure requirement of 1x10⁻⁹ mbar, despite the compact magnet layout and the large aspect ratio of the vacuum chambers. In this work, we present the optimisations of the coating process performed at CERN to coat different geometries and mechanical assembling used for the MAX IV vacuum chambers; the morphology of the thin films is analysed by Scanning Electron Microscopy; the composition and thickness is measured by Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis; the activation of the NEG thin film is monitored by X-ray Photoemission Spectroscopy; the vacuum performance of the coated beam pipes is evaluated by the measurement of hydrogen sticking coefficient. The results of the coating production characterisation for the 84 units coated at CERN are presented., Proceedings of the 6th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2015, Richmond, VA, USA

Cost and energy savings are an integral requirement in the design of future particle accelerators. Very low losses SRF accelerating systems, together with high-efficiency cryogenics systems, have the potential of low running costs. The association to the capital cost reduction allowed by thin films coated copper cavities may represent the best overall cost-performance compromise. This strategy has been applied for instance in LEP, the LHC and HIE-ISOLDE with the niobium thin films technology. New materials must be considered to improve the quality factor of the cavities, such as Nb3Sn, which could also ideally operate at higher temperature thus allowing further energy savings. The study considers the possibility to coat a copper resonator with an Nb3Sn layer by means of magnetron sputtering using an alloyed target. We present the impact of the process parameters on the as-deposited layer stoichiometry. The latter is in good agreement with previous results reported in the literature and can be tuned by acting on the coating pressure. The effect of post-coating annealing temperature on the morphology, crystallinity and superconducting properties of the film was also investigated., Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on RF Superconductivity, SRF2015, Whistler, BC, Canada