Eight cryostats, each housing 4 sputtered Nb/Cu, 160 MHz, quarter wave resonators (QWR), are now in operation in ALPI[1]. Two of them house high β cavities; the others are equipped with medium β resonators. Another medium β cryostat is ready and will be installed in the early 2002. Pb/Cu medium β accelerating cavities are now present only in four cryostats and they will have their Pb superconducting (SC) layer replaced by sputtered Nb soon.

The substitution of the Pb SC layer in ALPI medium β resonators did not interfere with ALPI operation; the upgrading of resonators went on parallel to the cryostat maintenance programme. The average accelerating field of these resonators, at the design power of 7 W, overcomes 4 MV/m, whereas, when Pb electroplated, their average value was 2.7 MV/m. The sputtered resonator combines the good SC characteristics of Nb with the higher thermal conductivity and better stability to change of He bath pressure, which is typical of copper resonators. This leads to a very high reliability, as routinely experienced during beam acceleration.

SRFQ2 is the second RFQ superconducting (SC) structure of PIAVE, the positive ion injector of the SC LINAC for heavy ions ALPI, in operation at Legnaro.

During 2001, SRFQ2 was extensively tested at cryogenic temperature reaching its design performance, i.e., 280 kV inter-electrode voltage (equivalent to 25 MV/m peak surface electrical field) at 7 W dissipated power.

This paper describes the treatments, the main difficulties arisen during the tests, the way they were overcome and the measurement sequences that allowed the characterization of SRFQ2 behavior. A brief description of future programs is also given.