TY - CONF A1 - Angurel, L.A. A1 - Cubero, A. A1 - Martínez, E. A1 - de la Fuente, G.F. A1 - Navarro, R. A1 - Legall, Herbert A1 - Krüger, Jörg A1 - Bonse, Jörn T1 - Effects of laser surface processing under different atmospheres on the superconducting properties of pure niobium N2 - Niobium metal is the pure element with the highest superconducting critical temperature (T_c = 9.2 K), which is present in many applications. Particularly, in superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities of particle accelerators, the control of the surface characteristics of pure Nb is crucial, as the presence of defects may generate magnetic flux pinning that can increase by more than two orders of magnitude the surface critical current, ic. Several procedures such as chemical- or electro-polishing have been used aiming at cleaning surface contamination and decreasing its roughness. Sub-nanosecond lasers can be applied to generate a broad range of micro and nanostructures (e.g. Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Structures, LIPSS) that strongly modify the materials properties - as wettability, color, oxidation resistance or antibacterial behavior. In this work, we analyze a variety of surface structures generated on pure Nb sheets with different laser systems (UV, Vis and n-IR, fs and ps) by exploring a range of processing parameters. These include pulse overlap, irradiance or the effective number of pulses, under different atmospheres (air, N2, Ar, vacuum). The effects on Tc, critical currents and critical fields (Bc1, Bc2 and Bc3) have been obtained from magnetization, ac susceptibility and heat capacity measurements, revealing their dependence with the different surface nanostructures and the chemical changes generated with these laser treatments. T2 - E-MRS Spring Meeting 2021 CY - Online meeting DA - 31.05.2021 KW - Laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) KW - Femtosecond laser ablation KW - Niobium KW - Superconductivity PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-52730 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -