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Outline for this presentation includes: Introduction; Comparison between Cu, Nb, Nb 3 Sn and MgB 2 ; A brief current status of MgB 2 development for SRF cavities; What needs to be done for HEP; and Other applications.
Magnesium diboride (MgB 2 ) is considered a potential material for superconducting radio frequency cavities. MgB 2 coated Cu cavity will allow for a higher operational temperature than a bulk Nb cavity because of the higher transition temperature of MgB 2 and the high thermal conductivity of Cu. Using the hybrid physical chemical vapor deposition technique, MgB 2 coatings were successfully achieved on the inner wall of 3-GHz Cu cavities. The surface and superconducting properties of the coatings were characterized using small samples on Cu plugs mounted at different locations of mock cavities. RF measurement of a MgB 2 coated single-cell 3-GHz test cavity was carried out and it showed superconducting transition at 36 K. Here, the quality factor of this test cavity was lower than expected due to poor connectivity and inclusion of Mg-Cu alloy in the MgB 2 coating.
This program studied the two-gap nature of magnesium diboride and its possible effects on the superconducting rf properties of this material. Magnesium diboride (MgB 2 ) is a BCS superconductor with a superconducting critical temperature of 39 K, high critical current density and no weak link behavior across the grain boundary. These properties make this material ideal for both power applications and electronic devices. In particular, the high superconducting critical temperature and high thermodynamic field suggests that MgB 2 could be an ideal material also for superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities operating at a much higher temperature than Nb cavities and, therefore, reducing noticeably the cryogenics costs. However, MgB 2 is a two gap superconductor and it has been suggested that the RF properties are dominated by the smaller gap, which would make this material not competitive with Nb and especially Nb 3 Sn. The main problem does not seem to be the double-gap nature of this material but rather the weak-coupling of the two gaps that in the presence of an RF field suppresses superconductivity all together at fields much lower than the thermodynamic field. The main goal of this proposal is to address the fundamental question of the coupling between the two gaps in MgB 2 and understand if it is possible to control it and ultimately improve the RF performance of MgB 2 . The project studied these questions by measuring the density of states in the presence of an in-plane current and focused on the effect of controlled disorder. Disorder, indeed, provides an important knob to tune the properties of MgB2 and provides the possibility of changing the coupling between the two bands, making this material a competitive material for SRF applications.