Electrical sparks and arcs are plasma discharges that carry large currents and can strongly modify surfaces. This damage usually comes in the form of micrometer-sized craters and frozen-in liquid on the surface. Using a combination of experiments, plasma and atomistic simulation tools, we now show that the observed formation of deep craters and liquidlike features during sparking in vacuum is explained by the impacts of energetic ions, accelerated under the given conditions in the plasma sheath to kiloelectron volt energies, on surfaces. The flux in arcs is so high that in combination with kiloelectron volt energies it produces multiple overlapping heat spikes, which can lead to cratering even in materials such as Cu, where a single heat spike normally does not.

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The CLIC study is high power testing accelerating structures in a number of different materials and accelerating structure designs to understand the physics of breakdown, determine the appropriate scaling of performance and in particular to find ways to increase achievable accelerating gradient. The most recent 30 GHz structures which have been tested include damped structures in copper, molybdenum, titanium and aluminum. The results from these new structures are presented in this paper.

The selection of candidate materials for the accelerating cavities of the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is carried out in parallel with high power RF testing. The maximum DC breakdown field of copper, copper alloys, refractory metals, aluminium and titanium have been measured with a dedicated setup. Higher maximum fields are obtained for refractory metals and for titanium, which exhibits, however, important damages after conditioning. Fatigue behaviour of copper alloys has been studied for surface and bulk by pulsed laser irradiation and ultrasonic excitation, respectively. The selected copper alloys show consistently higher fatigue resistance than copper in both experiments. In order to obtain the best local properties in the device a possible solution is a bi-metallic assembly. Junctions of molybdenum and copper-zirconium UNS C15000 alloy, achieved by HIP (Hot Isostatic Pressing) diffusion bonding or explosion bonding were evaluated for their mechanical strength. The reliability of the results obtained with both techniques should be improved. Testing in DC and radiofrequency (RF) is continued in order to select materials for a bi-metal exhibiting superior properties with respect to the combination C15000-Mo. AbstractThe selection of candidate materials for the accelerating cavities of the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is carried out in parallel with high power RF testing. The maximum DC breakdown field of copper, copper alloys, refractory metals, aluminium and titanium have been measured with a dedicated setup. Higher maximum fields are obtained for refractory metals and for titanium, which exhibits, however, important damages after conditioning. Fatigue behaviour of copper alloys has been studied for surface and bulk by pulsed laser irradiation and ultrasonic excitation, respectively. The selected copper alloys show consistently higher fatigue resistance than copper in both experiments. In order to obtain the best local properties in the device a possible solution is a bi-metallic assembly. Junctions of molybdenum and copper-zirconium UNS C15000 alloy, achieved by HIP (Hot Isostatic Pressing) diffusion bonding or explosion bonding were evaluated for their mechanical strength. The reliability of the results obtained with both techniques should be improved. Testing in DC and radiofrequency (RF) is continued in order to select materials for a bi-metal exhibiting superior properties with respect to the combination C15000-Mo.

Abstract-A new approach to photo detection using pixel Hybrid Photon Detectors (pixel-HPD's) has been adopted for the LHCb-RICH detector. These devices use a hybrid pixel detector inside an evacuated photo tube providing high-precision, low noise detection of Cherenkov radiation. The approach takes advantage of modern CMOS technology offering many advantages over more traditional techniques. These advantages include extremely high sensitivity, low noise and fast readout.