Ricerc@Sapienza

Selective Laser Melting of AlSi10Mg parts has a lot of applications in different fields such as aerospace and automotive for its abilities to fabricate components characterized by complex shapes, good mechanical properties and low porosity. One of the main drawbacks for its application is the obtainable surface roughness widely not suitable for functional requirements. Typically, the improvement is handled by secondary operations thus markedly increasing the production time and costs.

R&D activity on Cu photocathodes is under development at the SPARC_LAB test facility to fully characterize each stage of the photocathode ‘‘life’’ and to have a complete overview of the photoemission properties in high brightness photo-injectors. The nano(n)-machining process presented here consists in diamond milling, and blowing with dry nitrogen. This procedure reduces the roughness of the cathode surface and prevents surface contamination introduced by other techniques, such as polishing with diamond paste or the machining with oil.