Growth, patterning, and weak-link fabrication of superconducting YBa2Cu3O7−x thin films

We have grown thin films of the high-temperature superconducting ceramic oxides and investigated techniques for fabricating weak-link structures. Films of YBa2Cu3O7−x grown on SrTiO3 by a combination of dc magnetron sputtering and thermal evaporation from the three sources have been patterned into microbridges with widths down to 2 μm. We find evidence that the bridges behave as arrays of Josephson-coupled superconducting islands. Further weak-link behavior is induced by in situ modification of the coupling by ion milling through the bridge.