New Methods for Thin Film Deposition and First Investigations of the use of High Temperature Superconductors for Thin Film Cavities

Niobium thin film cavities have shown good and reliable performance for LEP and LHC, although there are limitations to overcome if this technique should be used for new accelerators such as the ILC. New coating techniques like High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) has shown very promising results and we will report on its possible improvements for Nb thin film cavity performance. Current materials used in accelerator Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) technologies operate at temperatures below 4 K, which require complex cryogenic systems. Researchers have investigated the use of High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) to form RF cavities, with limited success [1]. We propose a new approach to achieve a high-temperature SRF cavity based on the superconducting 'proximity effect' [2]. The superconducting proximity effect is the effect through which a superconducting material in close proximity to a non-superconducting material induces a superconducting condensate in the latter. Using this effect we hope to overcome the problems that have prevented the use of HTS for accelerating structures so far. We will report the preliminary studies of magnetron sputtered thin films of Cu on Nb.