Masters Defense: Karsten P. K. Madsen

Higher Tc superconductors coupled to nanostructures

This thesis presents critical temperature Tc and Bc measurements on superconducting Ta/Ti bilayer reaching ~3.5 K and ~2.5 T, respectively, which are compared to Re-Mo superconducting thin films with Tc ~10 K and Bc > 8 T at T = 6.6 K.  
Nanostructures using CNTs and InAs/GaSb core-shell nanowires have been fabricated using Re-Mo and Ta/Ti superconducting electrodes, respectively. The electrical properties of these junctions were characterized by conductance measurements primarily at room temperature. Finally, Fabry-Perot resonance, Coulomb blockade, and co-tunneling transport through simple quantum dots are observed and analyzed for Au-CNT-Au nanostructures.