We present fast tunable superconducting microwave resonators fabricated from planar $\mathrm{Nb}\mathrm{N}$ on a sapphire substrate. The $3\lambda /4$ wavelength resonators are tuning fork shaped and tuned by passing a dc current that controls the kinetic inductance of the tuning fork prongs. The $\lambda /4$ section from the open end operates as an integrated impedance converter that creates a nearly perfect short for microwave currents at the dc terminal coupling points, thus preventing microwave energy leakage through the dc lines. We measure an internal quality factor $Q_{\mathrm{int}}>{10}^5$ over the entire tuning range. We demonstrate a tuning range of greater than $3\mathrm{\%}$ and tuning response times as short as 20 ns for the maximum achievable detuning. Because of the quasifractal design, the resonators are resilient to magnetic fields of up to 0.5 T.

We report on the growth and characterization of ultrathin ${\mathrm{YBa}}_2{\mathrm{Cu}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_{7-\delta }$ (YBCO) films on MgO (110) substrates, which exhibit superconducting properties at thicknesses down to 3 nm. YBCO nanowires, with thicknesses down to 10 nm and widths down to 65 nm, have also been successfully fabricated. The nanowires protected by a Au capping layer show superconducting properties close to the as-grown films and critical current densities, which are limited by only vortex dynamics. The 10-nm-thick YBCO nanowires without the Au capping present hysteretic current-voltage characteristics, characterized by a voltage switch which drives the nanowires directly from the superconducting to the normal state. We associate such bistability to the presence of localized normal domains within the superconductor. The presence of the voltage switch in ultrathin YBCO nanostructures, characterized by high sheet resistance values and high critical current values, makes our nanowires very attractive devices to engineer single-photon detectors.

The properties of single submicron high-temperature superconductor (HTS) rings are investigated. The Little-Parks effect is observed and is accompanied by an anomalous behavior of the magnetic dependence of the resistance, which we ascribe to nonuniform vorticity (superfluid angular momentum) within the ring arms. This effect is linked to the peculiar HTS relationship between the values of the coherence length and the London penetration depth.

We propose to exploit currently available tunnel ferromagnetic Josephson junctions to realize a hybrid superconducting qubit. We show that the characteristic hysteretic behavior of the ferromagnetic barrier provides an alternative and intrinsically digital tuning of the qubit frequency by means of magnetic field pulses. To illustrate functionalities and limitation of the device, we discuss the coupling to a readout resonator and the effect of magnetic fluctuations. The possibility to use the qubit as a noise detector and its relevance to investigate the subtle interplay of magnetism and superconductivity is envisaged.

In this work, we have compared several configurations of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors based on D-shaped tapered plastic optical fibers (TPOFs). Particularly, the TPOFs used to obtain the SPR sensors are made by a lab-built system based on two motorized linear positioning stages and a heating plate. Preliminarily, a comparative analysis has been carried out between two different configurations, one with and one without a thin buffer layer deposited between the core of TPOFs and the gold film. After this preliminary step, we have used the simpler configuration, obtained without the buffer layer, to realize different SPR D-shaped TPOF sensors. This study could be of interest in SPR D-shaped multimode plastic optical fiber (POF) sensors because, without the tapers, the performances decrease when the POF’s diameter decreases, whereas the performances improve in SPR D-shaped tapered POF sensors, where the diameter decreases in the D-shaped sensing area. The performances of the SPR sensors based on different taper ratios have been analyzed and compared. The SPR-TPOF sensors have been tested using water–glycerin mixtures with refractive indices ranging from 1.332 to 1.381 RIU. According to the theory, the experimental results have demonstrated that, as the taper ratio increases, the sensitivity of the SPR sensor increases as well, while on the contrary the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) decreases.