Structural and superconducting properties of Nb-Ti alloy thin films

✍ Scribed by A. Mani; L.S. Vaidhyanathan; Y. Hariharan; M.P. Janawadkar; T.S. Radhakrishnan

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 547 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0011-2275
• DOI: 10.1016/s0011-2275(96)00068-9

✦ Synopsis

Structural instability in

Ti-rich compositions of Nb-Ti alloy systems, which leads to various anomalies in the normal and superconducting state properties, has been extensively studied in bulk samples in the past. It would be interesting to study the instability through the superconducting tunnelling technique which is more amenable in thin-film samples. As a first step we report in this paper the formation of thin films of several compositions in the Ti-rich region of such alloy systems by RF magnetron sputtering and investigation of their electrical properties. Compositional analysis of two representative films was carried out by the RBS technique and the compositions agreed to within 2% of the targeted values. Anomalous variations in the electrical charcteristics of the bulk, which can be ascribed to structural instability related to the formation of athermal w-phase, are also observed in thin films.