Metallurgical analysis and RF losses in superconducting niobium thin film cavities

Copper cavities with a thin niobium film as used in the large electron positron collider LEP would be also attractive for future linear colliders, provided the decrease of the Q-value with the accelerating gradient can be reduced. We aim at extracting the important parameters that govern this decrease. The dependence on the RF frequency is studied by exciting 500 MHz and 1500 MHz cavities in different modes. In addition we combined RF measurements for two 1500 MHz cavities of different RF performance with microscopic tests (AFM, TEM) on samples cut out of the same cavities. Their micro-structural characterisation in plan-view allows to extract the grain size and the defect densities.