Measurement of microwave surface resistance of patterned superconducting thin films
A simple and versatile measurement technique has been demonstrated for characterization of thin film superconductors and the substrates on which they are deposited. Unlike other state of the art measurements that characterize only the top layer of unpatterned thin films in end-plate replacement or perturbation-type cavity arrangements, we test the sample under conditions very close to those of actual microwave circuit applications. Measurements on a laser deposited, thin-film YBCO superconductor, patterned in the form of a meander line on a LaAlO3 substrate, show a microwave surface resistance one order of magnitude lower than that of copper at 79 K and 11 GHz. At 1.4 GHz and 79 K, an improvement by over two orders of magnitude is observed. This is the first demonstration of superior microwave performance of a comb filter structure using a HTS thin film.