We present our research on fabrication and structural and transport characterization of ultrathin superconducting NbN layers deposited on both single-crystal Al_2O_3 and Si wafers, and SiO_2 and Si_3N_4 buffer layers grown directly on Si wafers. The thicknesses of our films varied from 6 nm to 50 nm and they were grown using reactive RF magnetron sputtering on substrates maintained at the temperature 850°C. We have performed extensive morphology characterization of our films using the X-ray diffraction method and atomic force microscopy, and related the results to the type of the substrate used for the film deposition. Our transport measurements showed that even the thinnest, 6 nm thick NbN films had the superconducting critical temperature of 10-12 K, which was increased to 14 K for thicker films.
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