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Amorphous molybdenum silicon superconducting thin films


Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Sahonta, SL 
Hadfield, RH 
Barber, ZH 

Abstract

jats:pAmorphous superconductors have become attractive candidate materials for superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors due to their ease of growth, homogeneity and competitive superconducting properties. To date the majority of devices have been fabricated using WxSi1−x, though other amorphous superconductors such as molybdenum silicide (MoxSi1−x) offer increased transition temperature. This study focuses on the properties of MoSi thin films grown by magnetron sputtering. We examine how the composition and growth conditions affect film properties. For 100 nm film thickness, we report that the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) reaches a maximum of 7.6 K at a composition of Mo83Si17. The transition temperature and amorphous character can be improved by cooling of the substrate during growth which inhibits formation of a crystalline phase. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy studies confirm the absence of long range order. We observe that for a range of 6 common substrates (silicon, thermally oxidized silicon, R- and C-plane sapphire, x-plane lithium niobate and quartz), there is no variation in superconducting transition temperature, making MoSi an excellent candidate material for SNSPDs.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

40 Engineering, 4016 Materials Engineering, 51 Physical Sciences, 5104 Condensed Matter Physics

Journal Title

AIP Advances

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2158-3226
2158-3226

Volume Title

5

Publisher

AIP Publishing
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/I036303/1)
This work was supported by the EPSRC through grant EP/I036303/1. RHH acknowledges a Royal Society of London University Research Fellowship. The data used in this paper can be accessed at https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/247704.