Effect of the Width of Microbridge on the Characteristics of YBCO Step-Edge Josephson Junction
摘要
Step-edge grain boundary junctions are fabricated using the pulsed laser-deposited YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) film on MgO (100) substrates. Steps with height ~ 400 nm and angle ~ 20° are obtained using photolithography and ion beam etching (IBE) techniques. Microbridges with varying widths, 2, 5, 10, and 20 μm, are fabricated, and their transport properties are studied. A decrease in the critical current and an increase in the normal state resistance of the step-edge junctions are observed with a decrease in the width of the microbridge. The decrease in the Ic is not as sharp as the increase in the Rn value, which leads to the enhanced values of the IcRn product at the reduced width of the microbridge. Critical current density value is found to be maximum for the 2 µm wide junction. Also, the scaling behavior of the IcRn product with Ic and 1/Rn shows that no change in the transport mechanism occurs with change in width of the microbridge. The behavior of all the junctions is superconductor-normal metal-superconductor (SNS) type, as confirmed by the variation of critical current density with the reduced temperature. The IcRn product for the junction with 2 µm wide microbridge obtained at 77 K is 0.4 mV, which makes it a potential candidate for being used as a terahertz detector.