Effects of the Thickness of Niobium Surface Oxide Layers on Field Emission

Field emission on the inner surfaces of niobium superconducting radio frequency cavities is still one of the major obstacles for reaching high accelerating gradients for SRF community. Our previous experimental results* seemed to imply that the threshold of field emission was related to the thickness of Nb surface oxide layers. In this contribution, a more detailed study on the influences of the surface oxide layers on the field emission on Nb surfaces will be reported. By anodization technique, the thickness of the surface pentoxide layer was artificially fabricated from 3 nm up to 460 nm. A home-made scanning field emission microscope was employed to perform the scans on the surfaces. Emitters were characterized using a scanning electron microscope together with an energy dispersive x-ray analyzer. The SFEM experimental results were analyzed in terms of surface morphology and oxide thickness of Nb samples and chemical composition and geographic shape of the emitters. A model based on the classic electromagnetic theory was developed trying to understand the experimental results. Possibly implications for Nb SRF cavity applications from this study will be discussed.