Project Brief
General Competition (March 1991)Advanced Thallium Superconductor TechnologyDevelopment of thin-film fabrication techniques for a new, proprietary high-temperature superconductor invented by Du Pont. The project includes developing fabrication techniques and creating representative superconducting electronic devices to demonstrate feasibility. Sponsor: DuPontP.O. Box 80304Wilmington, DE 19880-0304
High-critical-temperature (HTc) superconductors have potentially important applications in many electronic and electrical devices because they bring all the advantages of superconductivity -- extremely low or non-existent electrical resistance, low energy loss, exclusion of magnetic fields, and special quantum electronic characteristics like the Josephson effect -- within the range of relatively simple liquid-nitrogen cooling. Present applications are limited in part by the need for commercially viable thin-film processes to produce HTc components. Three general classes of copper-containing HTc superconductors have been discovered, based respectively on yttrium, bismuth, and thallium compounds, and extensive research has been performed at Du Pont and elsewhere on thin-film tech-nology for these compounds. This proposal is to adapt and develop thin-film fabrication technologies for a relatively new and complex thallium/lead HTc superconductor developed and patented by Du Pont. The project will develop two fabrication processes -- a two-step approach using RF sputtering and post-annealing, and one in which sputtering and annealing are done simultaneously. Photolithographic and ion-milling techniques will be used to pattern the films, and a variety of basic electronic devices will be fabricated to demonstrate the new materials-based technology.
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