Abstract
Thin films of $YB_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-d}$ were prepared on various substrated of MgO(100), $SrTiO_{3}$, and $LaAlO_{3}$ by using off-axis magentron sputtering methods and annealing in-situ. The prarameters of film fabrication processes had been optimized through a "follow the lcoal maxima" strategy to yield good quality films in therms of the critical temperature $T_{c}$ and the critical current density $J_{c}$. Optimizedproecsses employing a plane magndtron and an cylindrical magnetron yielded $T_{c}$>90K along with $J_{c}$$10^{6}$A/$\textrm{cm}^2$ at 77K and > 2${\times}$$10^{7}$A/$\textrm{cm}^2$ at 5K. The sampels, however, showed degradationinthe properties, after chemical etching for fabrication of microbridges with the line width of 2-10 mocrons. In particular, the value of $T_{c}$ for the microbridges of 2microns was as small as 80%. The degradation was strongly dependent on the line width through a formula : $T_{c}$(e)=$T_{c}$)b) [1-a exp(-1000 bL)} where $T_{c}$(e) and $T_{c}$ (b) are the values of $T_{c}$ in the absolute scale measured after and before chemical etching, respectively and L is the line width in mm. By utilizing a best fitting technique, the proper constant values of a and to b were found as exp(-1.2) and 0.22, respectively. This formula was very useful in estimatiing the upper limit of the device operationtemperature.