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Surface characterization of nitrogen-doped Nb (100) large-grain superconducting RF cavity material

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Abstract

(100) Oriented niobium (Nb) crystals annealed in the vacuum conditions close to that used in mass production of 1.3 GHz superconducting radio frequency cavities for linear accelerators and treated in nitrogen at a partial pressure of 0.04 mbar at temperatures of 800 and 900 °C have been studied. The surfaces of the nitrogen-treated samples were investigated by means of various surface-sensitive techniques, including grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy in planar view and on cross-sections prepared by a focused ion beam. The appearance of a dense layer of epitaxial rectangular precipitates has been observed for the Niobium nitrided at 900 °C. Increased nitrogen concentration in the near-surface region was detected by glow-discharge optical-emission spectroscopy, focused ion-beam cross-sectional images and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Crystalline phases of NbO and β-Nb2N were identified by X-ray diffraction. This information was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron measurements, which in addition revealed the presence of Nb2O5, NbON, NbN, and NbN x O y components on the surface. These results establish the near-surface Nb phase composition after high-temperature nitrogen treatment, which is important for obtaining a better understanding of the improved RF cavity performance.

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Acknowledgements

Authors declare that no conflict of interests exist. Support on the material from Xenia Singer, and for the FIB preparation and the SEM analysis by S. Kulkarni at the DESY NanoLab, is acknowledged. We acknowledge the use of the focused ion-beam instrument at the DESY NanoLab funded by the BMBF Grant No. 5K13WC3 (PT-DESY). Authors GSD, AP, and BF acknowledge funding from the BMBF grant no. 05H15GURBB.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), 22607, Hamburg, Germany

    Arti Dangwal Pandey, Guilherme Dalla Lana Semione, Alena Prudnikava, Thomas F. Keller, Heshmat Noei, Vedran Vonk, Yegor Tamashevich, Eckhard Elsen, Brian Foster & Andreas Stierle

  2. Fachbereich Physik, Universität Hamburg, 22607, Hamburg, Germany

    Guilherme Dalla Lana Semione, Alena Prudnikava, Thomas F. Keller, Brian Foster & Andreas Stierle

  3. Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, 14109, Berlin, Germany

    Yegor Tamashevich

  4. European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), 1211, Geneva, Switzerland

    Eckhard Elsen

  5. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Brian Foster

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  1. Arti Dangwal Pandey
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  2. Guilherme Dalla Lana Semione
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Correspondence to Arti Dangwal Pandey.

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Dangwal Pandey, A., Dalla Lana Semione, G., Prudnikava, A. et al. Surface characterization of nitrogen-doped Nb (100) large-grain superconducting RF cavity material. J Mater Sci 53, 10411–10422 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2310-8

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