Multi-mode analysis of surface losses in a superconducting microwave resonator in high magnetic fields

This paper reports on a surface impedance measurement of a bulk metal niobium-titanium superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavity in a magnetic field (up to 10 T). A novel method is employed to decompose the surface resistance contributions of the cylindrical cavity end caps and walls using measurements from multiple TM cavity modes. The results confirm that quality factor degradation of a NbTi SRF cavity in a high magnetic field is primarily from surfaces perpendicular to the field (the cavity end caps), while parallel surface resistances (the walls) remain relatively constant. This result is encouraging for applications needing high Q cavities in strong magnetic fields, such as the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment because it opens the possibility of hybrid SRF cavity construction to replace conventional copper cavities.

Automated summary

This paper presents a surface impedance measurement of a bulk metal niobium-titanium superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavity in a magnetic field. A novel method is used to separate the surface resistance contributions of the cavity end caps and walls. The results show that the primary degradation of the quality factor in a high magnetic field comes from the perpendicular surfaces (cavity end caps), while the parallel surface resistances (walls) remain relatively constant. This has implications for applications requiring high-Q cavities in strong magnetic fields.