Field-Enhanced Superconductivity in High-Frequency Niobium Accelerating Cavities

Abstract

The discovery of nitrogen-doping treatment revealed that the radio frequency surface resistance of niobium resonators may be significantly reduced when nitrogen impurities are dissolved as interstitials in the material. A peculiar behavior exhibited by N-doped cavities is the anti-Q slope, i.e., a reduction in the temperature-dependent component of the surface resistance as a function of the accelerating field. This unusual trend in the surface resistance behavior has been attributed to the presence of interstitial nitrogen in the niobium lattice after the doping treatment. This Letter presents a focused study on the field dependence of the temperature-dependent component of the surface resistance as a function of the cavity resonant frequency. The findings show that the anti-Q slope may appear even in clean niobium cavities if the resonant frequency is high enough, which suggests new routes toward understanding the anti-Q slope effect.