Review of R&D at DESY on ingot niobium for accelerators

An R&D program at DESY exploring the potential of the production of 1.3 GHz TESLA shape cavities from large grain or ingot niobium material has been carried out as a feasibility study for using ingot niobium material for the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser project. The most important issues like feasibility of the fabrication of niobium discs from ingots, material properties, cavity fabrication, treatment, and finally the cryogenic radiofrequency (RF) performance of the cavity in the accelerator modules are presented and discussed. At least 25% higher intrinsic quality factor comparing to conventional fine-grain niobium and high accelerating gradient of up to 45 MV/m have been demonstrated during the cryogenic RF tests both in the vertical cryostats and in a completely assembled accelerating cryo-module.