Development of high resolution camera for observations of superconducting cavities

A system for inspecting the inner surface of superconducting rf cavities is developed in order to study the relation between the achievable field gradient and the defects in the inner surface. The inspection system consists of a high resolution complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor camera and a special illumination system built in a cylinder that has a diameter of 50 mm. The camera cylinder can be inserted into the L-band 9 cell superconducting cavity. The system provides a resolution of about 7.5  μm/pixel. Thus far, there have been good correlations between locations identified by thermometry measurements and positions of defects found by this system. The heights or depths of the defects can also be estimated by measuring wall gradients using the reflection angle relation between the camera position and the strip illumination position. This paper presents a detailed description of the system and the data obtained from it.