CARBON COATING 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.