Plasma cleaning of contaminated optical components of synchrotron radiation beam-line

Abstract

The plasma cleaning technique has been successfully developed to regularly remove the carbon contaminated layer on surfaces of all the optical components, installed in the vacuum chamber of the synchrotron radiation beam line, so as to ensure a good reflectance of the beam line, especially after a serious reduction of the photon flux near the carbon absorption edge and other wavelength ranges. In the technique, radio frequency (RF) plasma in dry oxygen and argon mixture produces large quantity of ozone, which oxidizes carbon contaminates into CO and CO2. The experimental results show that the plasma cleaning technique is capable of completely removing carbon contamination and maintaining ultra high vacuum of the beam line.