A method of producing very high resistivity surface conduction on ceramic accelerator components using metal ion implantation

An important technique used for the suppression of surface flashover on high voltage DC ceramic insulators as well as for RF windows is that of providing some surface conduction to bleed off accumulated surface charge. We have used metal ion implantation to modify the surface of high voltage ceramic vacuum insulators to provide a uniform surface resistivity of approximately 5×10¹⁰ Ω/square. A vacuum arc ion source based implanter was used to implant Pt at an energy of about 135 keV to doses of up to more than 5×10¹⁶ ions/cm² into small ceramic test coupons and also into the inside surface of several ceramic accelerator columns 25 cm I.D. by 28 cm long. Here we describe the experimental set-up used to do the ion implantation and summarize the results of our exploratory work on implantation into test coupons as well as the implantations of the actual ceramic columns