High temperature superconducting thin films for microelectronics: Preparation and properties
Abstract
The discovery of high temperature superconductors (HTSC) has generated a great deal of activity, both fundamental and towards applications. For the latter, low current devices appear to be particularly interesting. The fundamental building block of superconducting electronics is the Josephson junction, in which two superconducting electrodes are isolated by a thin metallic (SNS) or insulating (SIS) barrier. Due to the extreme low value of the coherence length in these compounds, one has to achieve very thin (a few nm) barriers with sharp interfaces with the superconducting material. This leads first to the major challenge of producing HTSC epitaxial films controlled at the atomic level. For HTSC thin film preparation, reasonable good films are now available routinely using the laser ablation technique. In particular, these films present high frequency characteristics which are good enough to develop superconducting components like microstrips for delay lines. For Josephson junction electronics, the requirements, especially for the barrier thickness control, are much more ambitious. In this context, molecular beam epitaxy, and furthermore atomic layer epitaxy, appear to be very promising.
- Publication:
-
In AGARD
- Pub Date:
- October 1990
- Bibcode:
- 1990asta.agar.....C
- Keywords:
-
- High Temperature Superconductors;
- Microelectronics;
- Molecular Beam Epitaxy;
- Superconductivity;
- Thin Films;
- Ablation;
- Electrodes;
- Frequency Distribution;
- Insulation;
- Josephson Junctions;
- Lasers;
- Low Currents;
- Solid-State Physics