The Superconducting TESLA Cavities

The conceptional design of the proposed linear electron-positron colliderTESLA is based on 9-cell 1.3 GHz superconducting niobium cavities with anaccelerating gradient of Eacc >= 25 MV/m at a quality factor Q0 > 5E+9. Thedesign goal for the cavities of the TESLA Test Facility (TTF) linac was set tothe more moderate value of Eacc >= 15 MV/m. In a first series of 27industrially produced TTF cavities the average gradient at Q0 = 5E+9 wasmeasured to be 20.1 +- 6.2 MV/m, excluding a few cavities suffering fromserious fabrication or material defects. In the second production of 24 TTFcavities additional quality control measures were introduced, in particular aneddy-current scan to eliminate niobium sheets with foreign material inclusionsand stringent prescriptions for carrying out the electron-beam welds. Theaverage gradient of these cavities at Q0 = 5E+9 amounts to 25.0 +- 3.2 MV/mwith the exception of one cavity suffering from a weld defect. Hence only amoderate improvement in production and preparation techniques will be needed tomeet the ambitious TESLA goal with an adequate safety margin. In this paper wepresent a detailed description of the design, fabrication and preparation ofthe TESLA Test Facility cavities and their associated components and report oncavity performance in test cryostats and with electron beam in the TTF linac.The ongoing R&D towards higher gradients is briefly addressed.