Bridge-free fabrication process for Al/AlO x /Al Josephson junctions*

We fabricate different-sized Al/AlO x /Al Josephson junctions by using a simple bridge-free technique, in which only single-layer E-beam resist polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is exposed at low accelerate voltage (below 30 kV) and the size of junction can be varied in a large range. Compared with the bridge technique, this fabrication process is very robust because it can avoid collapsing the bridge during fabrication. This makes the bridge-free technique more popular to meet different requirements for Josephson junction devices especially for superconducting quantum bits.