Techniques for forming quantum circuits, including connections between components of quantum circuits, are presented. A trench can be formed in a dielectric material, by removing a portion of the dielectric material and a portion of conductive material layered on top of the dielectric material, to enable creation of circuit components of a circuit. The trench can define a regular nub or compensated nub to facilitate creating electrical leads connected to the circuit components on a nub. The compensated nub can comprise recessed regions to facilitate depositing material during evaporation to form the leads. For compensated nub implementation, material can be evaporated in two directions, with oxidation performed in between such evaporations, to contact leads and form a Josephson junction. For regular nub implementation, material can be evaporated in four directions, with oxidation performed in between the third and fourth evaporations, to contact leads and form a Josephson junction.

A coated conductor comprises a substrate supporting a ReBCO superconductor adapted to carry current in a superconducting state. The superconductor is characterized in having peaks in critical current (J.sub.c) of at least 0.2 MA/cm.sup.2 in a magnetic field of about 1 Tesla when the field is applied normal to the surface of the superconductor and when the field is applied parallel to the surface of the superconductor, and further characterized in that the superconductor includes horizontal defects and columnar detects in a size and an amount sufficient to result in the said critical current response. The conductor is characterized in that the ratio of the height of the peaks in the J.sub.c is in the range from 3:1 with the ratio of the field perpendicular (0 degrees) to the field parallel (+/−90 degrees) to the range from 3:1 with the ratio of the field parallel to the field perpendicular.

According to various implementations of the invention, a vertical Josephson Junction device may be realized using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of YBCO and PBCO epitaxial layers in an a-axis crystal orientation. Various implementations of the invention provide improved vertical JJ devices using SiC or LSGO substrates; GaN, AlN, or MgO buffer layers; YBCO or LSGO template layers; YBCO conductive layers and various combinations of barrier layers that include PBCO, NBCO, and DBCO. Such JJ devices are simple to fabricate with wet and dry etching, and allow for superior current flow across the barrier layers.

A superconducting article includes a substrate and a superconducting metal oxide film formed on the substrate. The metal oxide film including ions of an alkali metal, ions of a transition metal, and ions of an alkaline earth metal or a rare earth metal. For instance, the metal oxide film can include Rb ions, La ions, and Cu ions. The superconducting metal oxide film can have a critical temperature for onset of superconductivity of greater than 250 K, e.g., greater than room temperature.

A system and method for treating a cavity comprises arranging a niobium structure in a coating chamber, the coating chamber being arranged inside a furnace, coating the niobium structure with tin thereby forming an Nb.sub.3Sn layer on the niobium structure, and doping the Nb.sub.3Sn layer with nitrogen, thereby forming a nitrogen doped Nb.sub.3Sn layer on the niobium structure.

According to various implementations of the invention, high quality a-axis XBCO may be grown with low surface roughness. According to various implementations of the invention, low surface roughness may be obtained by: 1) adequate substrate preparation; 2) calibration of flux rates for constituent atoms; and/or 3) appropriate control of temperature during crystal growth. According to various implementations of the invention, a wafer comprises a smoothing layer of c-axis XBCO; a first conducting layer of a-axis XBCO formed on the smoothing layer; an insulating layer formed on the first conducting layer; and a second conducting layer of a-axis XBCO formed on the insulating layer, where, for a same surface roughness, a thickness of the smoothing layer and the first conducting layer combined is greater than a thickness of the first conducting layer without the smoothing layer.

A circuit manufacturing method according to the present disclosure is a circuit manufacturing method by deposition, comprising performing first deposition for forming a first superconductor layer, oxidizing a surface of the first superconductor layer to form an oxide film, performing second deposition for forming a second superconductor layer, whereby a circuit in which Josephson junctions are aligned is generated. A mask includes two opening parts and an odd number of first-type opening parts. The width of a first-type opening part has such a length that the area of a Josephson junction formed based on the first superconductor layer and the second superconductor layer derived from the first-type opening part becomes larger than the area of a Josephson junction formed based on the first superconductor layer and the second superconductor layer derived from the two opening parts that are adjacent to each other.

According to various implementations of the invention, a vertical Josephson Junction device may be realized using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of YBCO and PBCO epitaxial layers in an a-axis crystal orientation. Various implementations of the invention provide improved vertical JJ devices using SiC or LSGO substrates; GaN, AlN, or MgO buffer layers; YBCO or LSGO template layers; YBCO conductive layers and various combinations of barrier layers that include PBCO, NBCO, and DBCO. Such JJ devices are simple to fabricate with wet and dry etching, and allow for superior current flow across the barrier layers.

A system and method for treating a cavity comprises arranging a niobium structure in a coating chamber, the coating chamber being arranged inside a furnace, coating the niobium structure with tin thereby forming an Nb.sub.3Sn layer on the niobium structure, and doping the Nb.sub.3Sn layer with nitrogen, thereby forming a nitrogen doped Nb.sub.3Sn layer on the niobium structure.

A superconducting article includes a substrate and a superconducting metal oxide film formed on the substrate. The metal oxide film including ions of an alkali metal, ions of a transition metal, and ions of an alkaline earth metal or a rare earth metal. For instance, the metal oxide film can include Rb ions, La ions, and Cu ions. The superconducting metal oxide film can have a critical temperature for onset of superconductivity of greater than 250 K, e.g., greater than room temperature.