• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.36-41
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• 2009

Superconducting quantum phenomena are getting attention from the field of metrology area. Following its first successful application of Josephson effect to voltage standard, piconewton force standard was suggested as a candidate for the next application of superconducting quantum effects in metrology. It is predicted that a micron-sized superconducting Nb ring in a strong magnetic field gradient generates a quantized force of the order of sub-piconewtons. In this work, we studied the design and fabrication of Nb superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) on an ultra-thin silicon cantilever. The Nb SQUID and electrodes were structured on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer by dc magnetron sputtering and lift-off lithography. Using the resulting SOI wafer, we fabricated V-shaped and parallel-beam cantilevers, each with a $30-{\mu}m$-wide paddle; the length, width, and thickness of each cantilever arm were typically $440{\mu}m,\;4.5{\mu}m$, and $0.34{\mu}m$, respectively. However, the cantilevers underwent bending, a technical difficulty commonly encountered during the fabrication of electrical circuits on ultra-soft mechanical substrates. In order to circumvent this difficulty, we controlled the Ar pressure during Nb sputtering to minimize the intrinsic stress in the Nb film and studied the effect of residual stress on the resultant device.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.81-84
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• 2005

We suggest flux quantum-based mechanism for force realization in the sub-pico-Newton range. By controlling the number of flux quantum in a superconducting ring, a force can be created as an integer multiple of a constant force step. For a 50 nm-thick Nb ring with the inner and outer radii of $5{\mu}m\;and\;10{\mu}m$, respectively, the force step is estimated to be 165 fN, assuming the magnetic field gradient of 10 T/m. We also estimated a maximum force limit to be $1\sim2$ pN.