We anticipate an era in which superconductors form the basis for a whole new industry of high performance electronics. These electronics frontiers include the use of Josephson-coupled superconductors, proximity-coupled superconductor/normal metal materials, and ultra-small (normal and superconducting) tunnel junctions which are sensitive to the presence of single electrons. As these technologies develop we have an excellent opportunity to study the fundamental physical processes which give rise to them. However, conventional low-Tc superconductors (which are most promising for all of these applications) are very sensitive to impurities, such as oxygen, water vapor and carbon contaminates. Hence it is necessary to produce these materials in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) thin film deposition systems. We will assemble a UHV, three-gun sputtering system for making superconducting, superconductor/insulator and superconductor/semiconductor multilayer structures as well as many other non-oxide superconductors for use in studying fundamental physical processes in solids.
