Acquisition of a UHV Sputtering System for Superconductor Research.

我们预计超导体将成为一个全新的高性能电子产业的基础。这些电子前沿包括约瑟夫森耦合超导体、邻近耦合超导体/正常金属材料，以及对单电子的存在敏感的超小(正常和超导)隧道结。随着这些技术的发展，我们有一个极好的机会来研究导致它们的基本物理过程。然而，传统的低T_c超导体(在所有这些应用中最有希望)对氧、水蒸气和碳污染等杂质非常敏感。因此，有必要在超高真空(UHV)薄膜沉积系统中制备这些材料。我们将组装一个超高压三枪溅射系统，用于制造超导、超导体/绝缘体、超导体/半导体多层结构以及许多其他非氧化物超导体，用于研究固体中的基本物理过程。

We anticipate an era in which superconductors form the basis for a whole new industry of high performance electronics. These electronics frontiers include the use of Josephson-coupled superconductors, proximity-coupled superconductor/normal metal materials, and ultra-small (normal and superconducting) tunnel junctions which are sensitive to the presence of single electrons. As these technologies develop we have an excellent opportunity to study the fundamental physical processes which give rise to them. However, conventional low-Tc superconductors (which are most promising for all of these applications) are very sensitive to impurities, such as oxygen, water vapor and carbon contaminates. Hence it is necessary to produce these materials in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) thin film deposition systems. We will assemble a UHV, three-gun sputtering system for making superconducting, superconductor/insulator and superconductor/semiconductor multilayer structures as well as many other non-oxide superconductors for use in studying fundamental physical processes in solids.