Technological survey of tellurium and its compounds

Review includes data on the chemical and physical properties of tellurium, its oxides, and fluorides, pertinent to the process problem of handling fission product tellurium in fluoride form. The technology of tellurium handling in nonaqueous processing of nuclear fuels is also reviewed

Study of loss in superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators

Superconducting coplanar waveguide (SCPW) resonators have a wide range of applications due to the combination of their planar geometry and high quality factors relative to normal metals. However, their performance is sensitive to both the details of their geometry and the materials and processes that are used in their fabrication. In this paper, we study the dependence of SCPW resonator performance on materials and geometry as a function of temperature and excitation power. We measure quality factors greater than $2\times10^6$ at high excitation power and $6\times10^5$ at a power comparable to that generated by a single microwave photon circulating in the resonator. We examine the limits to the high excitation power performance of the resonators and find it to be consistent with a model of radiation loss. We further observe that while in all cases the quality factors are degraded as the temperature and power are reduced due to dielectric loss, the size of this effect is dependent on resonator materials and geometry. Finally, we demonstrate that the dielectric loss can be controlled in principle using a separate excitation near the resonance frequencies of the resonator.Comment: Replacing original version. Changes made based on referee comments. Fixed typo in equation (3) and added appendi

Proximity-Coupled Ti/TiN Multilayers for use in Kinetic Inductance Detectors

We apply the superconducting proximity effect in TiN/Ti multi-layer films to tune the critical temperature, Tc, to within 10 mK with high uniformity (less than 15 mK spread) across a 75 mm wafer. Reproducible Tc's are obtained from 0.8 - 2.5 K. These films had high resistivities, > 100 uOhm-cm and internal quality factors for resonators in the GHz range on the order of 100k and higher. Both trilayers of TiN/Ti/TiN and thicker superlattice films were prepared, demonstrating a highly controlled process for films over a wide thickness range. Detectors were fabricated and showed single photon resolution at 1550 nm. The high uniformity and controllability coupled with the high quality factor, kinetic inductance, and inertness of TiN make these films ideal for use in frequency multiplexed kinetic inductance detectors and other potential applications such as nanowire detectors, transition edge sensors and associated quantum information applications

Sub-micrometer epitaxial Josephson junctions for quantum circuits

We present a fabrication scheme and testing results for epitaxial sub-micrometer Josephson junctions. The junctions are made using a high-temperature (1170 K) "via process" yielding junctions as small as 0.8 mu m in diameter by use of optical lithography. Sapphire (Al2O3) tunnel-barriers are grown on an epitaxial Re/Ti multilayer base-electrode. We have fabricated devices with both Re and Al top electrodes. While room-temperature (295 K) resistance versus area data are favorable for both types of top electrodes, the low-temperature (50 mK) data show that junctions with the Al top electrode have a much higher subgap resistance. The microwave loss properties of the junctions have been measured by use of superconducting Josephson junction qubits. The results show that high subgap resistance correlates to improved qubit performance

The Human leading the Thermal Comfort Control

Many buildings were designed and calculated by advanced software tools and simulation tools. However in real practice these buildings do not achieve the calculated energy efficiency, but use up to 40 to 50% more energy. One of the reasons for the discrepant ion between designed performance and real performance is the human behavior of which no real adequate integration into the design tools exists Therefore new design approaches are needed to implement the real behavior of occupants of buildings. Human-in-the-loop Technology is developed; a technology to implement user behavior. By starting from the human perspective and use available and new technology, we determined the critical performance indicators for the perceived human comfort. To further optimize the performance of these systems, further development is done into the possibilities and use of infra red heating systems for individual comfort control on workplace level