Epitaxial La2/3Cal/3MnO3 thin films grown on LaA103 （001） substrates were irradiated with low-energy 120-keV H＋ ions over doses ranging from 1012 ions/cm2 to 1017 ions/cm2. The irradiation suppresses the intrinsic insulator-metal （I-M） transition temperature and increases the resistance by reducing the crystallographic symmetry of the films. No irradiation-induced columnar defects were observed in any of the samples. The specific film irradiated at a critical dose around 8 x 1015 ions/cm2 is in a threshold state of the electric insulator where the I-M transition is absent. In an external field of 4 T or higher, the I-M transition is restored and thus an enormous magnetoresistance is observed, while a negative temperature coefficient resumes as the temperature is reduced further. Magnetic relaxation behavior is confirmed in this and other heavily irradiated samples. The results are interpreted in terms of the displacement of oxygen atoms provoked by ion irradiation and the resulting magnetic glassy state, which can be driven into a phase coexistence of metallic ferromagnetic droplets and the insulating glass matrix in a magnetic field.
Rhenium is a superconductor with a relatively weak tendency to oxidize, which is advantageous in superconducting quantum circuit and qubit applications. In this work, Re/A1-A1Ox/Re Josephson tunnel junctions were fabricated using a selective film-etching process similar to that developed in Nb trilayer technology. The Re films had a superconducting transition temperature of 4.8 K and a transition width of 0.2 K. The junctions were found to be highly reproducible using the fabrication process and their characteristics had good quality with a low leakage current and showed a superconducting gap of 0.55 meV.
We describe the fabrication of high performance YBa2Cu3O7-δ （YBCO） radio frequency （RF） superconducting quantum interference devices （SQUIDs）, which were prepared on 5 mm×5 mm LaAlO3 （LAO） substrates by employing stepedge junctions （SEJs） and in flip-chip configuration with 12 mm×12 mm resonators. The step in the substrate was produced by Ar ion etching with step angles ranging from 47° to 61°, which is steep enough to ensure the formation of grain boundaries （GBs） at the step edges. The YBCO film was deposited using the pulsed laser deposition （PLD） technique with a film thickness half of the height of the substrate step. The inductance of the SQUID washer was designed to be about 157 pH. Under these circumstances, high performance YBCO RF SQUIDs were successfully fabricated with a typical flux-voltage transfer ratio of 83 mV/φ0, a white flux noise of 29 μφ0/√Hz, and the magnetic field sensitivity as high as 80 fT/√Hz. These devices have been applied in magnetocardiography and geological surveys.
We report on a tunneling study of underdoped submicron Bi2Sr2_xLasCuO_6＋δ （La-Bi2201） intrinsic Josephson junctions （IJJs）, whose self-heating is sufficiently suppressed. The tunneling spectra are measured from 4.2 K up to the pseudogap opening temperature of T＊ = 260 K. The gap value found from the spectral peak position is about 35 meV and has a weak temperature dependence both below and above the superconducting transition temperature of Tc = 29 K. Since the superconducting gap should have a value of 10-15 meV, our results indicate that the pseudogap （～35 meV） plays an important role in the underdoped La-Bi2201 intrinsic tunneling spectroscopy down to the lowest temperature of 4.2 K. However, the contribution of the superconducting gap can be separated by normalizing the spectra to the one near and above Tc, which shows that the IJJs can be a useful tool for the study of the electronic properties of the La-Bi2201 cuprate superconductors.
Low frequency noise has been investigated at room temperature for asymmetric double barrier magnetic tunnel junctions（DBMTJs）, where the coupling between the top and middle CoFeB layers is antiferromagnetic with a 0.8-nm thin top Mg O barrier of the CoFeB/MgO/CoFe/CoFeB/MgO/CoFe B DBMTJ. At enough large bias, 1/f noise dominates the voltage noise power spectra in the low frequency region, and is conventionally characterized by the Hooge parameter αmag.With increasing external field, the top and bottom ferromagnetic layers are aligned by the field, and then the middle free layer rotates from antiparallel state（antiferromagnetic coupling between top and middle ferromagnetic layers） to parallel state. In this rotation process αmag and magnetoresistance-sensitivity-product show a linear dependence, consistent with the fluctuation dissipation relation. With the magnetic field applied at different angles（θ） to the easy axis of the free layer,the linear dependence persists while the intercept of the linear fit satisfies a cos（θ） dependence, similar to that for the magnetoresistance, suggesting intrinsic relation between magnetic losses and magnetoresistance.
Herein we develop an Al/AlOx/Al trilayer process, feasible to fabricate complex circuits with wiring crossovers, for the preparation of A1 junctions and phase qubits. The AlOx layer is obtained by in situ thermal oxidation, which provides high-quality junction tunnel barriers. The A1 junctions show a considerably low leakage current and the Josephson critical current density can be conveniently controlled in the range of a few to above 100 A/cm2, which is favorable in the phase qubit application. Macroscopic quantum tunneling, energy spectrum, energy relaxation time, Rabi oscillation, and Ramsey interference of the A1 phase qubits are measured, demonstrating clearly quantum coherent dynamics with a timescale of 10 ns. Further improvements of the coherent dynamic properties of the device are discussed.
A low-noise cryogenic amplifier for the bandwidth from 100 kHz to 2 MHz with commercially available components is presented. The amplifier is mounted on the cold finger of our home-made liquid helium dipstick. The input imp√edance of the amplifier is 2 k？. The input-referred voltage noise of the amplifier at approximately 2 MHz is around 1 n V/Hz^（1/2）. We demonstrate the performance of the amplifier by measuring shot noise on the Al/AlOx/Al tunneling junction with resistance about 17 k？ at liquid helium temperature.
