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A square hole array is fabricated over a micro-bridge of NbN thin film by electron beam lithography and reactive ion milling. Magneto-resistance is measured across the micro-bridge filled with a hole array near the superconducting transition temperature. It is found that magneto-resistance minima occur when the number of vortices is an integer multiple or a fractional multiple of the number of holes. The temperature and the current dependences of the matching effect are studied.

A quasi-optical superconducting NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixer is measured in the frequency range of 0.5-2.5 THz for understanding of the frequency dependence of noise temperature of THz coherent detectors. It has been found that noise temperature increasing with frequency is mainly due to the coupling loss between the quasi-optical planar antenna and the superconducting HEB bridge when taking account of non-uniform distribution of high-frequency current. With the coupling loss corrected, the superconducting HEB mixer demonstrates a noise temperature nearly independent of frequency.

We have experimentally studied the surface modifications of Y-Ba-Cu-O (YBCO) thin films using CF4 plasma. The intensity of the plasma fluorination was controlled by changing the biasing voltage and the time of the plasma treatment. Microstructural analyses reveal that the oxygen content of the YBCO thin films was changed. Transport measurements of sufficient fluorinated YBCO films imply that the films changed totally into an oxygen-deficient semi-conducting state. From these experimental results, we believe that plasma fluorination is quite a useful method to form controllable a thin barrier layer in fabricating interface engineered junctions and to form a stable narrow weak-link region in fabricating planar superconductor-normal-superconductor junctions.

We investigate the surface structure and composition of a YBa2Cu3Oy (YBCO) thin film modified by CF4 plasma fluorination. In addition to the absorption of hydrocarbons, chemical reactions of the YBCO surface take place during CF4 plasma treatment. Various x-ray photoelectron spectroscopic data are reported and discussed. The existence of a thin barrier is confirmed, which homogeneously covers the edge of the base YBCO film in our interface engineering Josephson junction. Measurements of Auger electron spectroscopic data and the resistance versus temperature indicate that the barrier is a controllable-insulating layer.

A Gunn oscillator at 3 mm waveband has been phase-locked to a synthesizer local oscillator using a high Tc YBa2Cu5O7-δ Josephson junction operated at 77 K as the harmonic mixer, with harmonic numbers up to 52. The observed spectrum of the phase-locked output at the intermediate frequency (IF) shows clearly that the quality of the phase-locking is very good. To drive the analogue phase locking loop successfully, it is essential to have IF output and signal-to-noise ratio both as high as possible.

Low-temperature scanning electron microscopy (LTSEM) is a promising measuring technique for probing the spatial distribution of the superconducting properties of the high-temperature superconducting (HTS) thin films. A theoretical analysis of the electron-beam irradiation on the HTS thin films in the LTSEM has been carried out. An inhomogeneously distributed grain array model has been applied in the analysis, and some numerical simulations have been carried out on the electron-beam induced voltage (EIV) signals in the LTSEM experiments. The comparisons of our numerical results with the LTSEM experimental data indicate that it is quite reasonable to use a two-dimensional Josephson junction array for stimulating the inhomogeneous HTS thin film sample. Our numerical results also show that the EIV signals are influenced by the electron-beam power used in the LTSEM, and a reduction of the electron-beam power is suggested in order to eliminate the errors in estimating the local values of critical temperature Tc and critical current Ic by the sample temperature and the bias current at which the first EIV signal occurs.

A YBa2Cu3O7-δ thin film is modified by a probe electric field of an atomic force microscope to form a ridge with the width of only a grain cell. The modification varies with the operation parameters of the bias voltage, the moving velocity of the probe and the ambient humidity. Energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis shows only oxygen deficiency in the modified YBCO thin film. As a result, the suppressed superconductivity was found in the junction crossing the ridge.

A tunable superconducting half-wavelength coplanar waveguide resonator (CPWR) with Nb parallel nanowires ∼ 300 nm in width embedded in the center conductor was designed, fabricated, and measured. The frequency shift and the amplitude attenuation of the resonance peak under irradiation of 404-nm pulse laser were observed with different light powers at 4.2 K. The RF power supplied to such a CPWR can serve as current bias, which will affect the light response of the resonator.

Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) with a composite optical structure composed of phase-grating and optical cavity structures are designed to enhance both the system detection efficiency and the response bandwidth. Numerical simulation by the finite-difference time-domain method shows that the photon absorption capacity of SNSPDs with a composite optical structure can be enhanced significantly by adjusting the parameters of the phase-grating and optical cavity structures at multiple frequency bands. The absorption capacity of the superconducting nanowires reaches 70%, 72%, 60.73%, 61.7%, 41.2%, and 46.5% at wavelengths of 684, 850, 732, 924, 1256, and 1426 nm, respectively. The use of a composite optical structure reduces the total filling factor of superconducting nanowires to only 0.25, decreases the kinetic inductance of SNSPDs, and improves the count rates.

Considering that in a magnetic resonance system, if the detection coil contributes dominantly to the system noise, the performance of the whole system can certainly be improved by switching to a detection coil made of a high-temperature superconductor, and using YBa2Cu3O7 thin films on 25?25?mm2 LaAlO3 substrates, we have prepared two kinds of detection coils: single-coil and two-coil. Encouragingly, their quality factors are measured to be Q>2500 for two-coil (at 22.566?MHz and 77?K) and Q>5500 for single-coil (at 92.3?MHz and 77?K), respectively. Here, we describe the details of the design, fabrication and testing of the coils.

The complex refractive indices and the dielectric function of GaN for frequencies ranging from 0.25 to 1.22 THz are obtained using THz time-domain spectroscopy. The real part of the dielectric function first decreases from 0.25 to 0.42 THz and then oscillates from 0.42 to 1.22 THz, whereas the imaginary part of the dielectric function is oscillating within the whole range of frequency. The simple Drude model is extended to take into account the effect of defects on the dielectric function. The extended model is in agreement with the experimental data.