CERN Accelerating science

MicroStep-MIS has been selected to supply of arc-detectors to European Spallation Source, a joint European organisation committed to constructing and operating the world's leading facility for research using neutrons. 

The arc detectors will protect installed infrastructure from damages caused by waveguide arcs - burning plasma ignited in strong electric fields. The system detects an optical evidence of arc propagation, uses sophisticated logic to evaluate the nature of the received signals and issues interlock signal in case of detection of the real arc. Consequently, the source is switched off and the arc propagation stopped. The challenging task in the project is a minimisation of spurious trips - false detection of arcs - in order to achieve ESS planned 95 % beam availability.

The arc detector technology has been developed at CERN and transferred to MicroStep-MIS, which became the arc detector producer and supplier for other laboratories as well as for CERN. The technology has been proven by use at various experimental devices, including CERN's Large Hadron Collider and Linac4 accelerator.

This text was originally published by Micro-step on their website.