Magnetic shielding performance of superconducting YBCO thin film in a multilayer device structure

• A multilayer structure was fabricated in the form of YBCO/STO/YBCO.
• Bottom layer was used as a magnetic shield.
• The top layer was patterned as a microbridge.
• Magnetic shielding performance of the bottom layer onto the microbridge was tested.
• Ic of the microbridge was kept constant under the various magnetic fields.

Magnetic shielding performance of superconducting YBaCu2O7−x (YBCO) thin film on an YBCO microbridge was analyzed in a multilayer structure. A sandwich type multilayer structure was fabricated onto a single crystal (1 0 0) SrTiO3 (STO) substrate in the form of YBCO/STO/YBCO by depositing a thin STO interlayer in between two YBCO layers. The top YBCO was patterned as 20 μm width meander-type microbridges and the bottom layer YBCO was used as magnetic shield. YBCO and STO thin films were deposited by dc and rf magnetron sputtering respectively, and the patterning was performed by using standard photolithography and wet etching. In order to enhance long-term stability of the final device, an additional STO thin film was deposited onto the device as an encapsulation layer. Electrical and magnetic characterizations of the YBCO thin film layers were carried out by means of ac magnetic susceptibility (χ–T) and resistance vs. temperature (R–T) measurements. The current–voltage (I–V) measurements were performed on the microbridges at 77 K by observing the shielding performance of the bottom YBCO layer under various applied magnetic fields. The results were compared with that of a same-type single layer YBCO device without a shielding layer. The zero field critical current value of the single layer 20 μm wide YBCO device was measured as 30 mA and decreased down to 20 mA as the field increased up to 100 mT. The same measurements on the multilayer device showed that the critical current values remained almost constant around 27 mA as the applied field increased.