Performance-defining properties of Nb$_3$Sn coating in SRF cavities

TL;DR

This paper investigates the properties of Nb$_3$Sn coatings in SRF cavities, identifying flaws that impact performance and establishing quality metrics to improve future designs, with implications for cost-effective, high-temperature superconducting applications.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis linking Nb$_3$Sn coating flaws to cavity performance issues, offering new insights into material quality assessment for SRF applications.

Findings

Degraded Nb$_3$Sn coating quality causes increased heating during RF testing.

Identification of coating flaws responsible for poor cavity performance.

Establishment of figures of merit correlating material quality with SRF performance.

Abstract

Nb$_3$Sn has great potential to become the material of choice for fabrication of SRF cavities. The higher critical temperature of Nb$_3$Sn potentially allows for an increased operational temperature in SRF cavities, which could enable tremendous simplification of cryogenic system, leading to significant cost reduction. We present extended characterization of a Nb$_3$Sn coated Nb cavity prepared at Cornell University. Using combination of thermometry during cavity RF measurements, and structural and analytical characterization of the cavity cutouts, we discover Nb$_3$Sn coating flaws responsible for the poor cavity performance. Our results clearly show degraded material quality in the cavity cutouts which exhibit significant heating during the RF testing. Results of extended comparison of cavity cutouts with different dissipation profiles not only point out the cause of significant Q-slope but also establish figures of merit for material qualities in relation to the quality of SRF performance.