Characterization of superconducting multilayers samples

Best RF bulk niobium accelerating cavities have nearly reached their ultimate limits at rf equatorial magnetic field H 200 mT close to the thermodynamic critical field Hc. In 2006 Gurevich proposed to use nanoscale layers of superconducting materials with high values of Hc > HcNb for magnetic shielding of bulk niobium to increase the breakdown magnetic field inside SC RF cavities [1]. Depositing good quality layers inside a whole cavity is rather difficult but we have sputtered high quality samples by applying the technique used for the preparation of superconducting electronics circuits and characterized these samples by X-ray reflectivity, dc resistivity (PPMS) and dc magnetization (SQUID). Dc magnetization curves of a 250 nm thick Nb film have been measured, with and without a magnetron sputtered coating of a single or multiple stack of 15 nm MgO and 25 nm NbN layers. The Nb samples with/without the coating clearly exhibit different behaviors. Because SQUID measurements are influenced by edge and shape effects we propose to develop a specific local magnetic measurement of HC1 based on ac third harmonic analysis in order to reveal the screening effect of multilayers