Design and fabrication of coplanar YBCO structures on lithium niobate substrates

YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7-/spl delta// (YBCO) with low RF losses has been successfully deposited onto lithium niobate (LNO) to improve the performance of electrooptic Mach-Zender modulators. Epitaxial, c-axis oriented superconducting YBCO thin films have been grown on X-cut LNO single crystals with a yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) buffer layer by RF magnetron sputtering. This buffer layer is needed to obtain good superconducting properties of the YBCO grown. Numerical tools have been developed to analyze CPW structures based on YBCO/YSZ/LNO trilayers, and they indicate that YSZ thickness has to be kept to the minimum necessary for good YBCO growth. With this restriction, the RF losses of YBCO/YSZ/LNO samples have been measured. The results from these measurements are used to quantify the performance enhancement in a Mach-Zender modulator using YBCO electrodes.