Main focus of this study is the investigation of thermodynamics phenomena responsible for the High Field Q Slope (HFQS) in SRF cavities by Internal Friction (IF) measurement. Mechanical spectroscopy is, indeed, a well-established technique to study p
recipitate formations in BCC materials and several works on the effects of impurities as N and O on the Snoek peak have been published so far and will be taken as reference to explain the mechanisms behind the observed dissipation effects. Internal Friction measurements were performed in Belgium at IMCE on Nb rectangular shape samples with different RRR values prepared at Fermilab by using Electro Polishing (EP), N-doping and heat treatments in order to reproduce the same conditions during the standard treatments applied on bulk Nb SRF cavities. From IF spectra, the H trapping mechanism by interstitial atoms (N and O and/or vacancies, depending on the purity level, RRR) can be easily recognized leading to results that perfectly corroborate previous findings on Q-disease, HFQS and RRR phenomena.
We discuss a potentially dramatic source of quantum decoherence in three-dimensional niobium superconducting resonators and in two-dimensional transmon qubits that utilize oxidized niobium: an aggravation of two-level system (TLS) induced losses driv
en by vacuum baking at temperatures and durations typically used in transmon qubit fabrication. By coupling RF measurements on cavities with time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry studies on an SRF cavity cutout, we find that modest vacuum baking (150-200~$^{circ}$C for 5~min-11~hrs) produces a partially depleted native niobium oxide which likely contains a large concentration of oxygen vacancies that drive TLS losses. Continued baking is found to eliminate this depleted layer and mediate these additional losses.
In this study, we present new insights on the origin of the high-field Q-slope in superconducting radio-frequency cavities. Consequent hydrofluoric acid rinses are used to probe the radio-frequency performance as a function of the material removal of
two superconducting bulk niobium cavities prepared with low temperature nitrogen infusion. The study reveals that nitrogen infusion affects only the first few tens of nanometers below the native oxide layer. The typical high-field Q-slope behavior of electropolished cavities is indeed completely recovered after a dozen hydrofluoric acid rinses. The reappearance of the high-field Q-slope as a function of material removal was modeled by means of Londons local description of screening currents in the superconductor, returning good fitting of the experimental data and suggesting that interstitial impurities layers with diffusion length of the order to tens of nanometers can mitigate high-field Q-slope.
In this paper, we describe the vortex dynamics under high-amplitude microwave drive and its effect on the surface resistance of superconductors. The vortex surface resistance is calculated with a Montecarlo approach, where the vortex motion equation
is solved for a collection of vortex flux lines each oscillating within a random pinning landscape. This approach is capable of providing a detailed description of the microscopic vortex dynamics and in turn important insights into the microwave field amplitude dependence of the vortex surface resistance. The numerical simulations are compared against experimental data of vortex surface resistance at high microwave amplitude measured by means of bulk niobium superconducting-radio frequency cavities operating at 1.3 GHz. The good qualitative agreement of simulations and experiments suggests that the non-linear dependence of the trapped flux surface resistance with the microwave field amplitude is generated by progressive microwave depinning and vortex jumps.
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 f
ield - 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.
