NANOFABRICATION OF WEAK LINKS BASED ON SCANNING FORCE METHODS

Variable thickness bridges of superconducting Nb thin films have been fabricated for the first time by a combination of conventional photoli thography and scanning force nanofabrication methods. The weak link be havior of these superconducting nanobridges was verified by low-temper ature transport measurements, in particular by measuring the critical current as a function of an externally applied magnetic field. Future applications of miniaturized weak link structures may include high-res olution scanning SQUID microscopes.