DESIGN FABRICATION AND TESTING OF HIGH TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTING PASSIVE MICROWAVE DEVICE

A PROTOTYPE HTSC PASSIVE MICROWAVE DEVICE WILL BE DESIGNED, FABRICATED, AND TESTED. A LOW-LOSS DELAY LINE FOR APPLICATION IN A DIGITAL INSTANTANEOUS FREQUENCY MEASUREMENT (DIFM) AT 10 GHZ WILL BE FABRICATED FROM LOW SURFACE RESISTANCE THIN FILMS OF TLCABACUO ON SINGLE CRYSTAL MGO. FILMS WITH SURFACE RESISTANCE LESS THAN 500 MICRO-OHMS AT 77K WILL BE USED. THE NORMAL MICROSTRIP TRANSMISSION LINE GEOMETRY WILL BE CONSIDERED (WHERE DESIGN TOOLS MOSTLY EXIST). OTHER MICROSTRIP GEOMETRIES, SUCH AS INVERTED AND SUSPENDED TRANSMISSION LINES WILL PROBABLE ALSO BE USED, ALTHOUGH, DESIGN TOOLS WILL REQUIRE SOME DEVELOPMENT BY STI. THE BEST DESIGN STRUCTURE, BASED ON MATERIALS PROPERTIES OF THE FILMS AND SUBSTRATES, WILL BE CHOSEN FOR FABRICATION OF A PROTOTYPE TRANSMISSION LINE. THE FULL TWO-PORT VECTOR SCATTERING PARAMETERS WILL BE MEASURED ON THIS LINE, UTILIZING A CRYOGENIC SCATTERING PARAMETER TEST BED.