The fabrication of high-quality thin superconducting films is essential forsingle-photon detectors. Their device performance is crucially affected bytheir material parameters, thus requiring reliable and nondestructivecharacterization methods after the fabrication and patterning processes.Important material parameters to know are the resistivity, superconductingtransition temperature, relaxation time of quasiparticles, and uniformity ofpatterned wires. In this work, we characterize micro-patterned thin NbN filmsby using transport measurements in magnetic fields. We show that from theinstability of vortex motion at high currents in the flux-flow state of the$IV$ characteristic, the inelastic life time of quasiparticles can bedetermined to be about 2 ns. Additionally, from the depinning transition ofvortices at low currents, as a function of magnetic field, the sizedistribution of grains can be extracted. This size distribution is found to bein agreement with the film morphology obtained from scanning electronmicroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images.
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机译:高质量薄超导薄膜的制造对于单光子探测器至关重要。它们的器件性能受其材料参数的关键影响,因此需要在制造和构图工艺之后采用可靠且无损的表征方法。重要的材料参数是电阻率,超导转变温度,准粒子的弛豫时间和构图导线的均匀性。在这项工作中,我们通过使用磁场中的传输测量来表征微图案NbN薄膜。我们显示,从在$ IV $特性的磁通流状态下大电流涡旋运动的不稳定性,准粒子的非弹性寿命可以确定为大约2 ns。另外,从低电流下涡旋的钉扎转变,可以得出磁场的大小分布,这是磁场的函数。发现该尺寸分布与从扫描电子显微镜和高分辨率透射电子显微镜图像获得的膜形态一致。
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