Fabrication of MgB2 nanobridge dc SQUIDs by focused ion beam

Abstract

We have studied fabrication of MgB2 intragrain nanobridge dc SQUIDs by a focused ion beam (FIB) patterning technique. Not only the nanobridges as Josephson elements but the SQUID loop was patterned by FIB. The beam voltage was 30 kV and the beam current was 0.9 nA for the SQUID loop and 1.5 pA for the nanobridges. Each bridge had a nominal width and length of about 100 nm and a thickness of 650 nm. The SQUID loop had a 3 mu m x 3 mu m hole with a 2 mu m average linewidth. The zero-field superconducting transition temperature (T-c) of the SQUID was 37 K. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the SQUID showed large excess currents at all temperatures with a small portion of a resistively-shunted-junction (RSJ) component which increases as temperature approaches T-c. At low temperatures, the I-V curves exhibit a large heating effect with a second transition step, which is believed to be due to the transition of a grain boundary near the nanobridge. The SQUID showed well-behaving modulation properties at all temperatures with a modulation depth of more than 30 mu V at 33.5 K and 110 mu V at 15 K. These results together with our previous results on the intergrain nanobridge dc SQUID suggest that fabrication of dc SQUIDs based on FIB-patterned MgB2 nanobridges is highly tolerant of fabrication conditions. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.