Characterization of low-loss hydrogenated amorphous silicon films for superconducting resonators

Superconducting resonators used in millimeter-submillimeter astronomy would greatly benefit from deposited dielectrics with a small dielectric loss. We deposited hydrogenated amorphous silicon films using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, at substrate temperatures of 100°C, 250°C and 350° C. The measured void volume fraction, hydrogen content, microstructure parameter, and bond-angle disorder are negatively correlated with the substrate temperature. All three films have a loss tangent below 10−5 for a resonator energy of 105 photons, at 120 mK and 4-7 GHz. This makes these films promising for microwave kinetic inductance detectors and on-chip millimeter-submilimeter filters.