09:30 〜 11:30
▲ [10a-PA5-4] Niobium Based SIS Junctions with Aluminum Nitride Barrier
キーワード:SIS junction, niobium, aluminum nitride
Niobium Superconducting-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) tunnel junctions are most commonly fabricated from the layer stacks Nb/Al/AlOx/Nb or Nb/Al/AlNx/Nb, which are asymmetric with respect to the barrier. We have fabricated and characterized junctions using the symmetric layer stack Nb/Al/AlNx/Al/Nb. The ultra-thin AlNx barrier is formed by exposing the Al overlayer on the Nb base electrode to the afterglow region of a nitrogen plasma. Our experiments show that for the high current density regime, e.g. jc > 10 kA/cm2, junctions based on the symmetric layer stack have significantly lower sub-gap leakage than those made from the asymmetric layer stack. The mm-sized junctions, defined by optical lithography, have current densities up to 50 kA/cm2 and quality factors of Rsub-gap/Rnormal = 15 or greater. Sharpness of the non-linearity and high gap voltage of Vgap ~ 2.8 mV are maintained as long as the thickness of the Al layers do not exceed 4 nm.