2012/05/14 by Martin Sandberg, Michael R. Vissers, Jeffrey S. Kline +4 · 88 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Coplanar waveguide #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Microwave #Nitride #Photonic and Optical Devices #Photoresist #Resonator #Silicon #Silicon nitride #Titanium #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.4729623
published in Applied Physics Letters 100(26) (American Institute of Physics)
arxiv created 2012/05/14 · openalex publication_date 2012/06/25 · arxiv updated 2016/01/19 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We have investigated the correlation between the microwave loss and patterning method for coplanar waveguide titanium nitride resonators fabricated on silicon wafers. Three different methods were investigated: fluorine- and chlorine-based reactive ion etches and an argon-ion mill. At high microwave probe powers, the reactive etched resonators showed low internal loss, whereas the ion-milled samples showed dramatically higher loss. At single-photon powers, we found that the fluorine-etched resonators exhibited substantially lower loss than the chlorine-etched ones. We interpret the results by use of numerically calculated filling factors and find that the silicon surface exhibits a higher loss when chlorine-etched than when fluorine-etched. We also find from microscopy that re-deposition of silicon onto the photoresist and side walls is the probable cause for the high loss observed for the ion-milled resonators.