Thermal laser evaporation of superconducting Nb films
Abstract
Thermal laser evaporation (TLE) is an emerging physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique that uses continuous-wave lasers to evaporate even the most refractory elements. The deposition and characterization of superconducting refractory elements are of interest to assess the quality of films deposited by TLE. Here, we report the deposition of niobium (Nb) on c-plane sapphire using a home-built TLE system equipped with a 1070 nm continuous-wave fiber laser. A deposition rate of 0.19 Å/s was achieved with 533 W of laser power focused to a diameter of approximately 500 μm on a Nb target. A film with a thickness of 22.47 ± 0.05 nm and a root-mean-square (RMS) roughness of 0.23 ± 0.02 nm exhibited a room-temperature resistivity of 21.60 ± 0.05 μΩcm and a residual-resistivity ratio (RRR) of 5.71. The superconducting transition temperature, Tc, of the film was measured as 9.24 K, only 10 mK below the bulk value, with a transition width of 29 mK. Among films deposited without substrate heating, the electrical and superconducting properties of the present films meet or exceed those deposited by other techniques. This work contributes to the emerging consensus regarding TLE as a versatile PVD method for refractory elements and compounds.
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BibTeX
@misc{yan2026thermal,
title = {{Thermal laser evaporation of superconducting Nb films}},
author = {Yifei Yan and David S. Catherall and Finley B. Donachie and Dorsa Najafipanah and Austin J. Minnich},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.38070},
eprint = {2610.38070},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.38070},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Thermal laser evaporation of superconducting Nb films
AU - Yifei Yan
AU - David S. Catherall
AU - Finley B. Donachie
AU - Dorsa Najafipanah
AU - Austin J. Minnich
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/27
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.38070
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.38070
AB - Thermal laser evaporation (TLE) is an emerging physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique that uses continuous-wave lasers to evaporate even the most refractory elements. The deposition and characterization of superconducting refractory elements are of interest to assess the quality of films deposited by TLE. Here, we report the deposition of niobium (Nb) on c-plane sapphire using a home-built TLE system equipped with a 1070 nm continuous-wave fiber laser. A deposition rate of 0.19 Å/s was achieved with 533 W of laser power focused to a diameter of approximately 500 μm on a Nb target. A film with a thickness of 22.47 ± 0.05 nm and a root-mean-square (RMS) roughness of 0.23 ± 0.02 nm exhibited a room-temperature resistivity of 21.60 ± 0.05 μΩcm and a residual-resistivity ratio (RRR) of 5.71. The superconducting transition temperature, T_c, of the film was measured as 9.24 K, only 10 mK below the bulk value, with a transition width of 29 mK. Among films deposited without substrate heating, the electrical and superconducting properties of the present films meet or exceed those deposited by other techniques. This work contributes to the emerging consensus regarding TLE as a versatile PVD method for refractory elements and compounds.
ER -