High purity niobium has been used to fabricate superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities for linear particle accelerator applications for decades due to its high critical temperature (9.3 K) and critical magnetic field. Great progress has been made in achieving high accelerating gradients and quality factors (a measure of efficiency). However, the performance of Nb cavities still suffers from the variability of the material such that high quality factors and accelerating gradients cannot be consistently produced.Trapped magnetic flux is well known for causing significant radio-frequency losses. Both local flux penetration and flux trapping indicate the local suppression of superconductivity. Magnetic flux from both unshielded earth field and thermoelectric currents can be trapped when a cavity is cooled through its superconducting transition temperature. Microstructural defects including hydrogen, grain boundaries, and dislocations are possible causes for flux trapping. However, the details of magnetic flux trapping mechanisms and conditions that enable it are still not clear. Research on this topic has been very active in the SRF community. Cavity studies on flux expulsion after different heat treatments and cooldown procedures have been performed in recent years, but the study of flux trapping mechanisms at the microscopic level is still lacking.In order to study the effect of microscopic defects on flux trapping, single crystal and bicrystal samples were designed with strategically chosen tensile axes to intentionally introduce defects by a 5% tensile strain. Magneto-Optical (MO) Imaging was used to visualize locations where magnetic flux was trapped, and the dislocation substructures were studied using Electron Channeling Contrast Imaging (ECCI).The results show that high angle grain boundaries (HAGB) and low angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) have different flux penetration behaviors. LAGBS could be hydrogen segregation sites leading to precipitation of normal conducting hydrides along LAGBs at 1030300-130 K during cooling. In hydrogen contaminated single-crystal samples, large hydride scars (locations where a hydride formed and then dissolved during heating) were observed both at the LAGBs and within the grain after MO cooling; however, only hydrides at the LAGBs appeared to cause premature flux penetration. Flux trapping related to LAGBs could still be observed after the heat treatment removed most of the hydrogen. By contrast, the flux penetration along a HAGB could be turned off by heat treatment that removed hydrogen and restored by reintroducing hydrogen into the sample. This work suggests that HAGBs are not as effective at causing flux penetration or trapping as hydrides and LAGBs.Some deformed bi-crystal samples show correlations between a larger amount of deformation or a higher density of dislocations and more trapped flux. Deformation led to the development of dislocation substructures; however, the effect of dislocation arrangements on flux penetration could not be observed in the current work. Further study with flux measurement techniques of a higher resolution and sensitivity is necessary to understand what kinds of dislocation substructures are most likely to cause flux penetration.
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