No Arabic abstract
Cool-down dynamics of superconducting accelerating cavities became particularly important for obtaining very high quality factors in SRF cavities. Previous studies proved that when cavity is cooled fast, the quality factor is higher than when cavity is cooled slowly. This has been discovered to derive from the fact that a fast cool-down allows better magnetic field expulsion during the superconducting transition. In this paper we describe the first experiment where the temperature all around the cavity was mapped during the cavity cool-down through transition temperature, proving the existence of two different transition dynamics: a sharp superconducting-normal conducting transition during fast cool-down which favors flux expulsion and nucleation phase transition during slow cool-down, which leads to full flux trapping.
The surface resistance of an RF superconductor depends on the surface temperature, the residual resistance and various superconductor parameters, e.g. the energy gap, and the electron mean free path. These parameters can be determined by measuring the quality factor Q0 of a SRF cavity in helium-baths of different temperatures. The surface resistance can be computed from Q0 for any cavity geometry, but it is not trivial to determine the temperature of the surface when only the temperature of the helium bath is known. Traditionally, it was approximated that the surface temperature on the inner surface of the cavity was the same as the temperature of the helium bath. This is a good approximation at small RF-fields on the surface, but to determine the field dependence of Rs, one cannot be restricted to small field losses. Here we show the following: (1) How computer simulations can be used to determine the inside temperature Tin so that Rs(Tin) can then be used to extract the superconducting parameters. The computer code combines the well-known programs, the HEAT code and the SRIMP code. (2) How large an error is created when assuming the surface temperature is same as the temperature of the helium bath? It turns out that this error is at least 10% at high RF-fields in typical cases.
In this letter, we present the frequency dependence of the vortex surface resistance of bulk niobium accelerating cavities as a function of different state-of-the-art surface treatments. Higher flux surface resistance per amount of trapped magnetic field - sensitivity - is observed for higher frequencies, in agreement with our theoretical model. Higher sensitivity is observed for N-doped cavities, which possess an intermediate value of electron mean-free-path, compared to 120 C and EP/BCP cavities. Experimental results from our study showed that the sensitivity has a non-monotonic trend as a function of the mean-free-path, including at frequencies other than 1.3 GHz, and that the vortex response to the rf field can be tuned from the pinning regime to flux-flow regime by manipulating the frequency and/or the mean-free-path of the resonator, as reported in our previous studies. The frequency dependence of the trapped flux sensitivity to the amplitude of the accelerating gradient is also highlighted.
A systematic study is presented on the superconductivity (sc) parameters of the ultrapure niobium used for the fabrication of the nine-cell 1.3 GHz cavities for the linear collider project TESLA. Cylindrical Nb samples have been subjected to the same surface treatments that are applied to the TESLA cavities: buffered chemical polishing (BCP), electrolytic polishing (EP), low-temperature bakeout (LTB). The magnetization curves and the complex magnetic susceptibility have been measured over a wide range of temperatures and dc magnetic fields, and also for di erent frequencies of the applied ac magnetic field. The bulk superconductivity parameters such as the critical temperature Tc = 9.26 K and the upper critical field Bc2(0) = 410 mT are found to be in good agreement with previous data. Evidence for surface superconductivity at fields above Bc2 is found in all samples. The critical surface field exceeds the Ginzburg-Landau field Bc3 = 1.695Bc2 by about 10% in BCP-treated samples and increases even further if EP or LTB are applied. From the field dependence of the susceptibility and a power-law analysis of the complex ac conductivity and resistivity the existence of two different phases of surface superconductivity can be established which resemble the Meissner and Abrikosov phases in the bulk: (1) coherent surface superconductivity, allowing sc shielding currents flowing around the entire cylindrical sample, for external fields B in the range between Bc2 and Bcohc3, and (2) incoherent surface superconductivity with disconnected sc domains between Bcohc3 and Bc3. The coherent critical surface field separating the two phases is found to be Bcoh c3 = 0.81Bc3 for all samples. The exponents in the power law analysis are different for BCP and EP samples, pointing to different surface topologies.
Recently, heat treatment between 250 C and 500 C has been attempted to improve quality factor of superconducting radio-frequency cavities at FNAL and KEK. Experiments of such medium temperature (mid-T) bake with furnaces have also been carried out at IHEP. Firstly, eleven 1.3 GHz 1-cell cavities were treated with different temperatures at a small furnace. The average quality factor has reached 3.6E10 when the gradient is 16 MV/m. Then, the recipe of mid-T furnace bake at 300 C for 3 hours has been applied to six 1.3 GHz 9-cell cavities at a new big furnace. The average quality factor has reached 3.8E10 when the gradient is 16 MV/m.
Superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) niobium cavities are the modern means of particle acceleration and an enabling technology for record coherence superconducting quantum systems and ultra-sensitive searches for new physics. Here we report a systematic effect observed on a large set of bulk SRF cavities - an anomalous decrease of the resonant frequency at temperatures just below the superconducting transition temperature - which opens up a new means of understanding the physics behind nitrogen doping and other modern cavity surface treatments relevant for future quality factor and coherence improvements. The magnitude of the frequency change correlates systematically with the near-surface impurity distribution in studied cavities and with the observed $T_c$ variation. We also present the first demonstration of the coherence peak in the real part of the AC complex conductivity in Nb SRF cavities and show that its magnitude varies with impurity distribution.