A study on the effect of tantalum-impurity content on the superconducting properties of niobium materials used for making superconducting radio frequency cavities

Niobium materials in highly pure form are used in the fabrication of superconducting radio frequency cavities. We present here a study of the superconducting properties of such niobium materials that have been used in the fabrication of high accelerating gradient superconducting radio frequency cavities after determining their tantalum-impurity contents using a synchrotron-based x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy technique. Our results show that there is a small change in superconducting parameters such as T C , H C1 and H C2 when the tantalum-impurity content varies from ≈150 to ≈1300 ppm. In contrast, a buffered chemical polishing of the same niobium samples changes all these superconducting parameters more significantly. The implications of these results on the performance of niobium superconducting radio frequency cavities are discussed.