Electron Spin Resonance Magnetometers for Particle Accelerators

CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research located in Geneva, Switzerland. Its main goal is to explore fundamental physics and it exists primarily to provide physicists the necessary tools for doing this, namely accelerators. These tools bring particles to almost the speed of light and then use them in different experiments. The CERN Accelerator Complex includes a chain of interconnected accelerators allowing the acceleration of charged particles up to 6.5 TeV per beam (for protons) in 2018 by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Different types of accelerator exist, but at CERN the most common are the synchrotrons. For those, the magnetic field is synchronous with the beam momentum. Magnetic models cannot be always used to predict the field within the required reproducibility, which may be as low as 10^(-5), due to non-linear effects (eddy currents, saturation and hysteresis). Therefore, most of the CERN's synchrotrons are equipped with a real time magnetic field measurement system, the so called "B-Train". The magnetic field measurement devices are composed of absolute field sensors (called "markers"), field tracking sensors (called "induction coils"), an acquisition system, a control system that calculates the magnetic field from the sensors, and a distribution system that delivers the field value to the users. Due to the configuration of the CERN accelerator chain, if one of the injectors fails, the LHC cannot have beam. Consequently, a huge consolidation program of the real time magnetic measurement systems was launched to guarantee operation in the long term. Thus the markers are critical devices for operations at CERN and must be carefully developed to fulfil the high performance and reliability requirements of the B-Train systems.

This thesis propose new designs for electron spin resonance (ESR) field markers. We discuss in details the design, the operation, and performance of the ESR sensors based on resonator and oscillator structures including comparison between paramagnetic and ferrimagnetic samples. We propose four field marker levels at 36 mT, 106 mT, 360 mT and 710 mT that correspond to resonance frequencies of 1GHz, 3GHz, 10GHz and 20 GHz. Those measurement values cover most of the marker level requirements of the CERN accelerators and achieving resolution up to 0.1 nT/Hz^(1/2) for field ramps as fast as 5 T/s and field gradients as strong as 12 T/m. We conclude with measurements validation performed on the Proton Synchrotron (PS) and on the Low Energy Ion Ring (LEIR) accelerators.