Hydrogen Outgassing and Surface Properties of TiN-Coated Stainless Steel Chambers

摘要

The stainless steel vacuum chambers of the 248m accumulator ring of Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) are coated with(approx) 100 nm of titanium nitride (TiN) to reduce the secondary electron yield. The coating is produced by DC magnetron sputtering using a long cathode imbedded with permanent magnets. The outgassing rates of several SNS half-cell chambers were measured with and without TiN coating, and before and after in-situ bake. One potential benefit of a TiN coating is to serve as hydrogen permeation barrier that reduces the ultimate outgassing rate. By varying the coating parameters, films of different surface roughness were produced and analyzed by Auger electron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy to illustrate the dependence of the outgassing on the film structure.