Amorphous Carbon Thin Film Coating of the SPS Beamline: Evaluation of the First Coating Implementation

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.