Ceramic Conductors and Superconductors: Materials and Devices

The aim of this project is to maintain a state-of -the-art deposition facility for high quality yttrium-barium-copper-oxide (YBCO) superconducting films and to characterize ceramic thin-films as well as prototype thin-film devices such as Josephson junctions and SQUIDs.
Thin-films are fabricated using a pulsed laser deposition set-up with a Questek 2720 excimer laser, scanning optics, and a chamber which allows deposition in a controlled low-pressure oxygen/argon atmosphere. Basic equipment for lithography (wet etching) is available.
A range of characterization equipment for determining e.g. electric and magnetic properties down to low temperatures is employed in the studies.
In 1999 the activities have been: 1) studies of flux noise in ceramic high-critical temperature (high Tc) superconducting thin films, Josephson junctions and SQUIDs (two M.Sc. projects with NKT Research Center) and 2) application of high-Tc SQUIDs to studies of magnetic fields generated by peripheral nerve currents (ph.d. projects with NKT Research Center and the Copenhagen University Teaching Hospital Rigshospitalet).