Tunability of the superconductivity of tungsten films grown by focused-ion-beam direct writing

We have grown tungsten-containing films by focused-ion-beam (FIB)-induced chemical vapor deposition. The films lie close to the metal-insulator transition with an electrical conductivity which changes by less than 5% between room temperature and 7 K. The superconducting transition temperature T-c of the films can be controlled between 5.0 and 6.2 K by varying the ion-beam deposition current. The Tc can be correlated with how far the films are from the metal-insulator transition, showing a nonmonotonic dependence, which is well described by the heuristic model of [Osofsky et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 197004 (2001)]. Our results suggest that FIB direct-writing of W composites might be a potential approach to fabricate mask-free superconducting devices as well as to explore the role of reduced dimensionality on superconductivity. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3013444]