A theory describing the operation of a superconducting nanowire quantum interference device NQUID is presented. The device consists of a pair of thin-film superconducting leads connected by a pair of topologically parallel ultranarrow superconducting wires. It exhibits intrinsic electrical resistance, due to thermally activated dissipative fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. At...

We consider a Casimir cavity, one plate of which is a thin superconducting film. We show that when the cavity is cooled below the critical temperature for the onset of superconductivity, the sharp variation (in the far infrared) of the reflection coefficient of the film engenders a variation in the value of the Casimir energy. Even though the relative variation in the Casimir energy is very sma...

Pulsed laser deposition method was employed to grow MgO thin films with preferred orientation on bare Si(100) and SiO2/Si(100) substrates. The orientation of MgO thin films was systematically investigated by varying deposition parameters. XRD analysis showed that the preferred orientation of MgO thin films would change from (111) to (100) when laser fluence decreased and oxygen pressure increas...

In recent years, the demand for thin film coatings on large area substrates has been rapidly increasing. Coating is some times required to make an object harder, or to provide the surface with particular electrical and optical properties. Hence, research on thin film science has received much attention due to its tremendous applications in modern technology. The importance of coatings and the s...

We consider a thin-film normal-metal/superconductor junction in the presence of an externally applied in-plane magnetic field for several symmetries of the superconducting order parameter. For p-wave superconductors, a strongly spin-polarized current emerges due to an interplay between the nodal structure of the superconducting order parameter, the existence or nonexistence of zero-energy surfa...

We present a high-resolution microwave spectrometer to measure the frequency- dependent complex conductivity of a superconducting thin film near the critical temperature. The instrument is based on a broadband measurement of the complex reflection coefficient, S 11, of a coaxial transmission line, which is terminated to a thin film sample with the electrodes in a Corbino disk shape. In the vici...

The performance of hot electron bolometer mixer devices made out of superconducting thin films critically depends on film quality. We discuss various deposition conditions for Nb films and present their properties for a wide thickness range. The obtained film parameters allow to predict the characteristics of our actual devices. We also shortly present a new fabrication process for Nb diffusion...