Description
Vanadium silicide, V$_3$Si, is a superconducting, SC, silicide with a comparatively high superconducting transition temperature, T$_c$ ~ 17 K, and upper critical field, B$_{c2}$ ~ 20 T. [1, 2] It has the A15 structure and can be formed into thin superconducting films on substrates including silicon dioxide, SiO$_2$, and silicon-on-insulator, SOI, by V deposition and thin film reaction making it an attractive prospect for superconducting device formation for quantum technologies development. [3, 4] In this presentation we will show details of our investigations of the phase formation during thin film reaction of V on SiO$_2$ and V on SOI and describe the variations in the layered film morphologies that can result depending on the substrate preparation processes utilized. The phase transformed films typically exhibited SC transitions in the temperature range T$_c$ ~ 12 – 15K and these T$_c$’s also translate to similar values in patterned thin film devices formed either by local V patterning and thermal reaction or by global V patterning, thermal reaction and then followed by reactive ion etching to define the device structures. We will describe the SC phase and device formation protocols we have used and present results from low-temperature magneto-transport measurements, transmission electron microscopy, TEM, and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, RBS.
[1] B. Batterman and C. Barrett, “Low-temperature structural transformation in V$_3$Si”, Phys. Rev. 145, 296, (1966).
[2] K. Howard, et al., “Thermal annealing of DC sputtered Nb$_3$Sn and V$_3$Si thin films for superconducting radio-frequency cavities”, J. Appl. Phys. 134, 225301 (2023).
[3] W. Zhang et al., “Thin‑film synthesis of superconductor‑on‑insulator A15 vanadium silicide”, Scientific Reports, 11, 2358, (2021).
[4] M. Bose et al., “In-situ investigation of V$_3$Si phase formation at high temperature and resulting superconductivity”, Applied Surface Science, 696, 162930, (2025).
| I am the presenting author | Yes |
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