Fabrication of submicron La2−xSrxCuO4 intrinsic Josephson junction stacks

Abstract

Intrinsic Josephson junction (IJJ) stacks of cuprate superconductors have potential to be implemented as intrinsic phase qubits working at relatively high temperatures. We report success in fabricating submicron La2−xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) IJJ stacks carved out of single crystals. We also show a new fabrication method in which argon ion etching is performed after focused ion beam etching. As a result, we obtained an LSCO IJJ stack in which resistive multibranches appeared. It may be possible to control the number of stacked IJJs with an accuracy of a single IJJ by developing this method.