Aging effect of non-evaporable getter coatings

The pumping performance of getter materials has becoming one of the hotspots in accelerator field. The recovery of pumping performance after air venting, also called aging effect, is important for applications in accelerators. In this work, we investigated the aging effect of Ti–V–Zr–Hf- and Ti–V–Zr-coated copper tubular chambers, and the effect of initial air exposure time on the aging properties. The samples presented hierarchically micro/nano-structures and showed a featured aging curve, giving about 9 effective pumping cycles. The pumping performance is inversely correlated with air exposure time suggesting that the getter coated chambers should be properly preserved before applied as a “pump”.