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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen
TT 19: Superconductivity: Poster Session
TT 19.4: Poster
Monday, March 7, 2016, 15:00–18:00, Poster D
Microwave study of superconducting Sn films above and below percolation — •Manfred H. Beutel, Nikolaj G. Ebensperger, Markus Thiemann, Gabriele Untereiner, Martin Dressel, and Marc Scheffler — 1. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57, D-70569, Germany
The electronic properties of superconducting Sn films (Tc ≈ 3.7 K) change significantly when lowering the film thickness down to a few nm, in particular at the percolation threshold. The low energy electrodynamics of such Sn samples can be probed via microwave spectroscopy, e.g. with superconducting stripline resonators.
We have deposited Sn films by thermal evaporation, ranging in thickness between 38 nm and 842 nm, and we characterized their morphology by AFM. We use superconducting Pb stripline resonators to probe the microwave response of Sn films at temperatures from 7.5 K down to 1.5 K in a frequency range between 1 GHz and 20 GHz. The measured quality factor of the resonators decreases with increasing temperature due to increasing losses. As a function of the sample thickness we observe three regimes with significantly different properties: Samples below percolation exhibit dielectric properties with negligible losses, demonstrating that macroscopic current paths are required for appreciable dynamical conductivity of Sn at GHz frequencies. Thick Sn films, on the other hand, lead to low-loss resonances above and below Tc of Sn, but in an intermediate thickness regime, just above percolation, the metallic state of the Sn films is too lossy for resonator operation whereas the superconducting state only has low microwave losses.