Fabricating nanoscale aperture arrays for superfluid helium-4 weak link experiments

Abstract

Arrays of nanoscale apertures have been found to exhibit fascinating quantum phenomena such as the Josephson effect and collective quantized phase-slippage. To be in the Josephson regime, the aperture size must be comparable to the healing length of the 4He order parameter. For 50nm apertures this regime is attained ∼mK below Tλ. Collective phase slippage occurs at considerably lower temperatures.Fabricating aperture arrays with appropriate properties (strength, temporal stability and reproducibility) at these length scales has been a long-standing goal for our group. Here, we present the techniques used thus far, based on recent work performed at the Cornell Nanoscale Facility. We discuss some issues that arise and their possible solutions.