Highly crystalline superconducting TiN resonators grown on thermally reconstructed sapphire
Abstract
High quality crystalline growth of a thin film on sapphire requires sufficient substrate preparation, often achieved via the use of aggressive chemical cleaning. Direct thermal reconstruction of the sapphire substrate via a CO2 laser beam may allow for an alternative way to prepare the substrate for epitaxy without the use of any chemical processing. Within this work, we demonstrate that thermal annealing of sapphire into its (√(31)×√(31))R±9° reconstruction is a valid alternative preparation technique for sapphire substrates. TiN films grown via plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy upon these substrates exhibit greater crystallinity than those grown on chemically cleaned sapphire substrates. Superconducting resonators fabricated from these films exhibit similar performance, with many possessing internal quality factors at single photon levels greater than 106 for both substrate preparation methods.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{smart2026highly,
title = {{Highly crystalline superconducting TiN resonators grown on thermally reconstructed sapphire}},
author = {Thomas J. Smart and Marc Neis and Janine Lorenz and Marcello P. Guardascione and Roudy Hanna and Michael Schleenvoigt and Yuan Gao and Joscha Domnick and Benjamin Bennemann and Abdur Rehman Jalil and Jin Hee Bae and Harsh Bhardwaj and F. Stefan Tautz and Felix Lüpke and Detlev Grützmacher and Rami Barends and Pavel A. Bushev and Peter Schüffelgen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.20317},
eprint = {2606.20317},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.20317},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Highly crystalline superconducting TiN resonators grown on thermally reconstructed sapphire
AU - Thomas J. Smart
AU - Marc Neis
AU - Janine Lorenz
AU - Marcello P. Guardascione
AU - Roudy Hanna
AU - Michael Schleenvoigt
AU - Yuan Gao
AU - Joscha Domnick
AU - Benjamin Bennemann
AU - Abdur Rehman Jalil
AU - Jin Hee Bae
AU - Harsh Bhardwaj
AU - F. Stefan Tautz
AU - Felix Lüpke
AU - Detlev Grützmacher
AU - Rami Barends
AU - Pavel A. Bushev
AU - Peter Schüffelgen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.20317
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.20317
AB - High quality crystalline growth of a thin film on sapphire requires sufficient substrate preparation, often achieved via the use of aggressive chemical cleaning. Direct thermal reconstruction of the sapphire substrate via a CO_2 laser beam may allow for an alternative way to prepare the substrate for epitaxy without the use of any chemical processing. Within this work, we demonstrate that thermal annealing of sapphire into its (√(31)×√(31))R±9° reconstruction is a valid alternative preparation technique for sapphire substrates. TiN films grown via plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy upon these substrates exhibit greater crystallinity than those grown on chemically cleaned sapphire substrates. Superconducting resonators fabricated from these films exhibit similar performance, with many possessing internal quality factors at single photon levels greater than 10^6 for both substrate preparation methods.
ER -