High-frequency filtering for low-temperature thermal transport studies in nanostructures

Filtering of external unwanted RF-noise and thermal noise generated at the high-temperature parts of the measuring circuit is essential for successful measurements of thermal transport of nanostructures at low temperatures. This is because of thermal decoupling of the systems, i.e. the extreme weakness of thermal conduction at sub-Kelvin temperatures, leading easily to overheating even with excess power in sub pW range. We have started to improve the noise filtering in our cryogenic dilution refrigerators, which can reach a base temperature of ~ 50 mK. The miniature low-pass filters were made from special RF sealing compound Eccosorb CR124, stainless steel powder of grain size 50 micrometer…

Normal Metal-Insulator-Superconductor Tunnel Junctions With Pulsed Laser Deposited Titanium Nitride as Superconductor

Here we report the fabrication of normal metal – insulator – superconductor (NIS) tunnel junctions using superconducting titanium nitride grown by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The films for NIS junction fabrication were deposited on two different substrates: silicon nitride film and magnesium oxide. TiN films were characterized by means of electrical transport measurements, and films with superconducting transition temperatures above the liquid helium boiling point were chosen for fabrication of NIS junctions. Tunnel junction devices were successfully fabricated using electron beam lithography and shadow evaporation techniques. The insulator layer formation was performed using two differe…

High quality superconducting titanium nitride thin film growth using infrared pulsed laser deposition

High-quality superconducting titanium nitride thin film growth using infra-red pulsed laser deposition

Superconducting titanium nitride (TiN) thin films were deposited on magnesium oxide, sapphire and silicon nitride substrates at 700 °C, using a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique, where infrared (1064 nm) pulses from a solid-state laser were used for the ablation from a titanium target in a nitrogen atmosphere. Structural studies performed with x-ray diffraction showed the best epitaxial crystallinity for films deposited on MgO. In the best films, superconducting transition temperatures, T C, as high as 4.8 K were observed, higher than in most previous superconducting TiN thin films deposited with reactive sputtering. A room temperature resistivity down to ~17 μΩ cm and residual resist…

Normal-Metal–Insulator–Superconductor Tunnel Junction With Atomic-Layer-Deposited Titanium Nitride as Superconductor

Energy of dendritic avalanches in thin-film superconductors

A method for calculating stored magnetic energy in a thin superconducting film based on quantitative magneto-optical imaging is developed. Energy and magnetic moment are determined with these calculations for full hysteresis loops in a thin film of the superconductor NbN. Huge losses in energy are observed when dendritic avalanches occur. Magnetic energy, magnetic moment, sheet current and magnetic flux distributions, all extracted from the same calibrated magneto-optical images, are analyzed and discussed. Dissipated energy and the loss in moment when dendritic avalanches occur are related to each other. Calculating these losses for specific spatially-resolved flux avalanches is a great ad…