NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN LOW-BETA SUPERCONDUCTING STRUCTURES

Two different materials, lead and niobium are currently applied to low beta superconducting cavities. New developments in the field are sign aled while scanning the different technological approaches utilized th roughout the whole scientific community. It will be seen that in spite of its thirty-year investigation, lead and lead-alloy technology appl ied to superconducting cavities is far from being fully mastered and t here is still room for improvement. Both bulk niobium and niobium clad copper are technologies already transferred to industry which provide s high reliability albeit at high costs. Niobium sputtering onto coppe r is appearing on the scenario of low beta resonators, passing from th e stage of prototype study to the stage of cavity installation into a Linac.