Surface resistance measurements of HTS films by means of sapphire dielectric resonators

A sapphire dielectric resonator with a copper cylindrical shield and two endplates replaced by high-temperature superconducting (HTS) layers was used for very accurate surface resistance measurements on laser-ablated YBCO films. A system using the TE/sub 011/ mode has a resonant frequency of about 18.1 GHz and parasitic-loss Q factor of about 120000. It allows 10 mm*10 mm samples to be measured with sensitivity of +or-30 mu Omega . Individual samples can be measured with somewhat lower accuracy. Using larger HTS samples, one can reduce parasitic losses of the system to an unsignificant level. The exact formulas presented for the resonant system allow for avoiding calibration procedures during the evaluation of the surface resistance.<<ETX>>