Measurement of the dielectric properties of high-purity sapphire at 1.865 GHZ from 2-10 Kelvin

A dielectric test cavity was designed and tested to measure the microwave dielectric properties of ultrapure sapphire at cryogenic temperatures. Measurements were performed by placing a large cylindrical crystal of sapphire in a Nb superconducting cavity operating in the TE₀₁ mode at 1.865 GHz. The dielectric constant, heat capacity, and loss tangent were all calculated using experimental data and RF modeling software. The motivation for these measurements was to determine if such a sapphire could be used as a dielectric lens to focus the magnetic field onto a sample wafer in a high field wafer test cavity. The measured properties have been used to finalize the design of the wafer test cavity.