Development of superconducting niobium accelerating structures for heavy ions

Results of tests of two new designs for superconducting niobium resonant cavities are presented. Both types resonate at 145.5 MHz and accelerate most efficiently for particle velocities β= v/c = 0.16. One resonator is of the split-ring type, but of a simpler design than a previously reported β=.16 unit. Although the surface fields are higher, the performance is somewhat better than for the earlier design: an accelerating field E
a
= 4.3 MV/m has been obtained at 4.2K with 4w of rf input, where E
a
is defined as the energy gain per unit charge for a synchronous particle averaged over the interior resonator length. The other resonator is an 8-inch OD tapered coaxial quarter-wave line terminated with a drift tube of 1.50 inch aperture. At 4.2K, this resonator exhibits a low-level Q of 2×10
⁹
, and has achieved E
a
= 4.7 MV/m with 2.8w of rf input.