Development of a superconducting connection for niobium cavities

Several, partially successful attempts have been made in the past to develop a superconducting connection between adjacent niobium cavities with the capability to carry up to 30 mT of the magnetic flux. Such a connection would be particularly of great benefit to layouts of long accelerators like ILC because it would shorten the distances between structures and therefore the total length of an accelerator with the associated cost reductions. In addition the superconducting connection would be ideal for a super-structure - two multi-cell cavities connected through a half wavelength long beam pipe providing the coupling. Two welded prototypes of super-structure have been successfully tested with beam at DESY. The chemical treatment and water rinsing was rather complicated for these prototypes because of the length of the assembly. We have engaged in a program to develop such a connection, initially based on the Nb55Ti material. Several options are pursued e.g. a two-cell cavity is being used to explore the reachable magnetic flux for the TESLA like connection with a squeezed niobium gasket between the flanges. Other materials, such as NbZr or NbN are also being considered. In this contribution, we will report about the progress of our investigations.