Infrared Pulsed Laser Deposition of Niobium Nitride Thin Films

We have successfully fabricated superconducting niobium nitride thin films on single crystals of magnesium oxide using a pulsed laser deposition technique where 1064 nm (photon energy ~1.16 eV) laser pulses from an Nd:YAG laser were used for ablation. A correlation between the superconducting transition temperature, the nitrogen base pressure during deposition and the lattice parameter of the produced NbN films was observed. Superconductor-insulator-normal metal junctions fabricated using these NbN films as the superconductor revealed nonlinear electrical characteristics at 4.2 K associated with quasiparticle tunneling.