High-Kinetic Inductance Additive Manufactured Superconducting Microwave Cavity

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first integration of additive manufacturing with superconducting microwave resonators using Ti-6Al-4V, revealing unique superconducting properties suitable for high kinetic inductance applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel 3D printed superconducting resonator made from Ti-6Al-4V, showing distinct superconducting transitions and a large London penetration depth not seen in other titanium alloys.

Findings

Ti-6Al-4V exhibits two superconducting transition temperatures.

The material has a large London penetration depth of about 8 micrometers.

The properties suggest suitability for quantum computing applications.

Abstract

Investigations into the microwave surface impedance of superconducting resonators have led to the development of single photon counters that rely on kinetic inductance for their operation. While concurrent progress in additive manufacturing, `3D printing', opens up a previously inaccessible design space for waveguide resonators. In this manuscript, we present results from the first synthesis of these two technologies in a titanium, aluminum, vanadium (Ti-6Al-4V) superconducting radio frequency resonator which exploits a design unattainable through conventional fabrication means. We find that Ti-6Al-4V has two distinct superconducting transition temperatures observable in heat capacity measurements. The higher transition temperature is in agreement with DC resistance measurements. While the lower transition temperature, not previously known in literature, is consistent with the observed temperature dependence of the superconducting microwave surface impedance. From the surface reactance, we extract a London penetration depth of $8\pm3{\mu}$m - roughly an order of magnitude larger than other titanium alloys and several orders of magnitude larger than other conventional elemental superconductors. This large London penetration depth suggests that Ti-6Al-4V may be a suitable material for high kinetic inductance applications such as single photon counting or parametric amplification used in quantum computing.