Superconducting Films

Abstract

In this chapter we give a brief description of the properties of thin superconducting films. These films play a very important role in applications of superconductivity, especially in superconducting electronics. This will be addressed in more detail in Chapter 12, devoted to applications. In addition, thin films exhibit a lot of interesting physical properties. To begin with, some materials (e.g., Be) are superconductors only if they are prepared in the form of a thin film. Usually, T _c of a film is different from that of the bulk material. For example, bulk Al has T _c , = 1.2 K, while in films T _c , reaches 2.1 K. This is due to the fact that both the phonon spectrum and the electronic characteristics (such as the density of states) in films are different from their counterparts in bulk matter.