Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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AKBP: Arbeitskreis Beschleunigerphysik
AKBP 9: RF Cavities I
AKBP 9.4: Talk
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 11:45–12:00, SCH/A117
Texture investigations of Nb3Sn thin films grown for SRF cavity application — •Márton Major1, Alexey Arzumanov1, Amir Farhood1, Michaela Arnold2, Norbert Pietralla2, and Lambert Alff1 — 1Institute of Materials Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany — 2Institute of Nuclear Physics, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
Superconducting (SC) RF cavity technology is dominated by bulk Nb due to its proven physical performance and mature production technology. Needs for reducing the energy consumption of particle accelerators, however, call for alternative SC materials, such as Nb3Sn, to allow their operation at higher temperatures at lower cryogenic costs. The Nb3Sn coating of carrier structures has the potential to reach high acceleration gradients even at 4.2 K. Utilising thin film technology enables to use copper, an excellent heat conductor, for the bulk of the cavity to which Nb3Sn can be sputtered for high-quality SC coatings. At our group, based on a low-temperature magnetron co-sputtering process, the direct deposition of SC Nb3Sn on Cu became possible. The grown films had high critical fields and critical temperatures. Films co-sputtered on different substrates (single crystalline sapphire, polycrystalline copper, amorphous glass) show different superconducting properties. In this contribution we present a detailed analysis of the texture and local order of the grown Nb3Sn thin films based mainly on x-ray diffraction measurements and discuss possible causes of observed differences.
Keywords: superconductor; cavity; Nb3Sn; coating; texture