Low Power Superconducting Microwave Applications and Microwave Microscopy

TL;DR

This paper reviews superconducting microwave applications in communications and electronics, and introduces a novel microwave near-field microscopy technique for high-resolution material property imaging.

Contribution

It presents a new microwave microscopy method capable of quantitative imaging of material properties at sub-millimeter scales.

Findings

Demonstrated imaging of sheet resistance and topography at microwave frequencies

Showed local microwave response analysis of heat-treated niobium surfaces

Reviewed non-accelerator high-frequency superconducting applications

Abstract

We briefly review some non-accelerator high-frequency applications of superconductors. These include the use of high-Tc superconductors in front-end band-pass filters in cellular telephone base stations, the High Temperature Superconductor Space Experiment, and high-speed digital electronics. We also present an overview of our work on a novel form of near-field scanning microscopy at microwave frequencies. This form of microscopy can be used to investigate the microwave properties of metals and dielectrics on length scales as small as 1 mm. With this microscope we have demonstrated quantitative imaging of sheet resistance and topography at microwave frequencies. An examination of the local microwave response of the surface of a heat-treated bulk Nb sample is also presented.