Artificial pinning centers for superconducting microwave resonators

Due to their outstanding features, superconductors give the opportunity to develop technology available in many areas and to improve the performance of the devices. Superconducting materials are used in many fields particularly in industry, transport, electronics, generation and storage of electricity and transport of electrical current. They are used in industry in the construction of powerful superconducting magnet and superconducting motor and transformer, in transportation, in levitation trains and superconducting motor boats, and in electronics, in the construction of the SQUID, superconducting transistors, particle accelerators, microchips, sensors, detectors, resonators and filters. Rapid developments in the field of electronics make it necessary to increase performances of electronic devices. Because of features such as high speed, low loss, and high resolution, superconductors are preferred in electronics more than the conventional devices. However, studies on superconducting devices have not been completed yet and the physics behind these devices has not been fully understood. Micro-wave resonator improved in terms of quality and performance is used in many areas such as aerospace, communication, television technology, radar, medicine, industry and military. While superconducting devices are made of low-temperature super-conductors such as Nb and NbSn3, high-temperature superconductors are preferred in recent years because of their working capacity at liquid nitrogen temperature and their high critical current and field values. Among high-temperature superconductors, YBCO stands out for microwave applications. Pd nano-dots have been formed on the substrates and, in YBCO, non-superconducting BZO nano-columns have been formed spontaneously on these nano-dots. These nano-columns in YBCO strip act as artificial pinning center. On the studies of use of the Pd to form nano-columns in YBCO, we have shown that artificial pinning centers significantly enhance the performance of the superconducting strip in magnetic field.