Reduced ITO for transparent superconducting electronics

Abstract Absorption of light in superconducting electronics is a major limitation on the quality of circuit architectures that integrate optical components with superconducting components. A 10 nm thick film of a typical superconducting material like niobium can absorb over half of any incident optical radiation. Instead, we propose using superconductors that are transparent to the wavelengths used elsewhere in the system. In this paper, we investigated reduced indium tin oxide (ITO) as a potential transparent superconductor for electronics. We fabricated and characterized superconducting wires of reduced ITO. We also showed that a 10 n m thick film of this material would only absorb about 1%–20% of light between 500 and 1700 nm.