Medium-Grain Niobium SRF Cavity Production Technology for Science Frontiers and Accelerator Applications

TL;DR

This paper presents a cost-effective method for producing medium grain niobium discs with reliable properties for use in superconducting radio frequency cavities, aiming to enhance particle accelerator performance in scientific and industrial applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel production technique for medium grain niobium discs directly sliced from forged billets, suitable for high-performance SRF cavities in accelerators.

Findings

Successful demonstration of medium grain niobium disc production

Discs exhibit clean surfaces and stable mechanical properties

Potential for improved accelerator cavity performance

Abstract

We propose cost-effective production of medium grain (MG) niobium (Nb) discs directly sliced from forged and annealed billet. This production method provides clean surface conditions and reliable mechanical characteristics with sub-millimeter average grain size resulting in stable SRF cavity production. We propose to apply this material to particle accelerator applications in the science and industrial frontiers. The science applications require high field gradients (>~40 MV/m) particularly in pulse mode. The industrial applications require high Q0 values with moderate gradients (~30 MV/m) in CW mode operation. This report describes the MG Nb disc production recently demonstrated and discusses future prospects for application in advanced particle accelerators in the science and industrial frontiers.