Novel development on superconducting niobium film deposition for RF applications

A new deposition technology has been developed, based on a cathodic arc system working under UHV conditions, to produce metallic thin films. The technique presents several advantages compared to standard sputtering, mainly: ionized state of the evaporated material, absence of gases to sustain the discharge, higher energy of atoms reaching the substrate surface, possibility to apply bias to the substrate and to guide the arc plasma using magnetic fields. Recent results on superconducting Niobium films deposited under several conditions and on sapphire substrate are reported. A cavity deposition system has been developed and the plasma transport to the cavity cell studied.