Fabrication of large dimension aluminum air-bridges for superconducting quantum circuits

Proper grounding between different ground planes in coplanar superconducting qubit circuits is important to avoid spurious resonances which increase decoherence. Here, the authors present a possible solution to suppress such undesired modes using superconducting aluminum air-bridges which have been fabricated on top of aluminum coplanar waveguide transmission lines. 3D electromagnetic simulations were done to guide the design of the air-bridges such that the input reflection (S-11) of the bridges was kept at a minimum level. A fabrication method based on optical lithography techniques was developed and it resulted in air-bridges with a height of approximately 10 mu m and lengths of up to 500 mu m. The method can be generalized to arbitrary length air-bridge with heights even exceeding 15 mu m. (C) 2013 American Vacuum Society.