Fabrication of High-Quality Niobium Superconducting Tunnel Junctions

For high-quality superconducting tunnel junctions (STJs), it is necessary to reduce leakage current as much as possible. We describe the fabrication of niobium STJs using the selective niobium (Nb) etching process and various ways to minimize the leakage current. The experiment shows that the leakage current mainly comes from shorts in the tunnel barrier layer rather than those around the junction edges. Through systematic analysis of the thin film stress, surface morphology and modified junction structures, we fabricate high-quality Nb STJs with a gap voltage of 2.8 mV and a leakage current at 1 mV as low as 8.1% and 0.023% at 4.2 K and 0.3 K, respectively.