Lithography applied to high-temperature superconductors

Anna Palau
Materials Science Institute of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC)
Campus UAB, 08193, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
palau@icmab.es

The physical properties of high temperature superconductors and the performance of superconducting devices are mainly determined by the individual and collective behaviour of vortices (quantum nano-tubes of magnetic flux). In order to develop the full potential of superconductors, it is essential to find appropriate lithography tools for nanoengineering the material to master vortex behaviour in a number of applications based on fluxonic concepts.

In the first part of this talk I will present a general overview of different high-resolution nanolithography approaches (Focused Ion Beam (FIB), Electron Beam Lithography (EBL), conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM)) with have been specifically tuned to artificially and locally modify the superconducting order parameter of high-temperature superconductors and thus manipulate their vortex dynamics.

In the second part of the talk, I will introduce different types of structures and hybrid systems based on YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-x superconducting films, specially designed to obtain novel functional properties for energy-efficient electronic devices. I will show how the physical properties of those systems can be tuned with temperature, magnetic and electrical fields, or even through geometry constrains.

Anna Palau is a Tenured Scientific at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona, ICMAB-CSIC since 2007. He is deputy coordinator of the research line: Superconducting materials for emerging technologies (https://www.icmab.es/research/research-lines). She received a B.S in Physics (1999), B.S in Materials Science (2000), Ph.D in Materials Science (2005) at Barcelona and performed a postdoctoral stay (2005-2007) at University of Cambridge (U.K). Her scientific interest includes functional properties of oxides with focus on superconducting and magnetic materials. Her main current research activity is devoted to study the outstanding physical properties of strongly correlated oxides with strong effort in the opportunities that nanotechnology can bring to high temperature superconductors. He has recently co-edited the Springer book Superconductivity: From materials science to practical applications.