High-Q, high gradient niobium-coated cavities at CERN

Superconducting cavities made by sputter-deposition of a thin niobium film onto copper have proven over the years to be a viable alternative to bulk niobium, the best example being the very successful operation of LEP at 200 GeV. It will be shown that this technology, investigated at 1.5 GHz by a dedicated R&D effort at CERN, can be developed to unprecedented performance, proving that no fundamental limitation prevents high quality factors to be maintained over a broad range of accelerating field.