First experience with He conditioning of an SRF photoinjector

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful application of helium conditioning to restore and significantly improve the performance of an SRF photoinjector cavity, addressing contamination issues caused by photocathode materials.

Contribution

First demonstration of helium conditioning for SRF cavity restoration in an operational photoinjector environment, improving performance and reliability.

Findings

Helium conditioning dramatically improved cavity performance.

Contamination from photocathodes can be mitigated with helium conditioning.

Helium conditioning is effective for in-situ SRF cavity restoration.

Abstract

The recent achievements in the performance of superconducting RF (SRF) photoinjectors have opened a new era in the development of the reliable high-brightness CW electron sources. While the SRF guns become one of the most promising technologies, the compatibility of SRF environment with the complex photocathodes remains on the forefront of the modern accelerator science. The SRF cavities operate at cryogenic temperatures providing the ultra-high vacuum (UHV) environment highly beneficial for the photocathode performance. However, the necessity to keep the photocathodes at room temperature while being surrounded by the cavity walls that are kept at cryogenic temperatures creates an additional complexity for the SRF gun design and operation. The complex and volatile chemical compounds used for photocathodes have a high chance of contaminating the surfaces of an SRF cavity. When deposited, such compounds could create centers for cold electron emission which degrade performance of the SRF guns. Such a circumstance would require development of the in-situ processing techniques for restoring the SRF cavity performance. This paper presents the results of the successful implementation and application of the He conditioning method for cavity restoration using the existing SRF photoinjector at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The method has proven to be extremely effective and resulted in a dramatic improvement of the BNL gun performance.