An investigative study of local variations in electrical properties of superconducting magnesium diboride thin films with variable-temperature scanning laser microscopy and applied mathematics

The local variation of superconducting properties in Magnesium Diboride thin films has been investigated with Variable Temperature Scanning Laser Microscopy (VTSLM) and Applied Mathematics. A mechanically modulated laser is scanned across the thin film surface acting as a local heat source. This local heating solicits an AC voltage response that can be referenced and measured by a lock-in amplifier.; Computational Methods have been developed for the purpose of imaging local critical temperature and maximum voltage response distributions. The computational methods rely on Applied Mathematics techniques. The local temperature variation in AC voltage response is approximated numerically and analytically through developed software. The critical temperature distributions are obtained analytically through first order ordinary differential equations, and non-analytically through numerical trend approximating techniques.; The computational results have indicated a surface contaminant that has been verified by stereoscopically magnified digital photography. The computational results have also implicated a region of high resistivity along the sample edges. The nature of this highly resistive region is ambiguous. However, there is evidentiary support for the assertion of non-stoichiometric film composition.; VTSLM has proven a feasible technique in the imaging of local variations in superconducting properties of Magnesium Diboride thin films. Computational techniques have proven reliable in approximating the functional nature of temperature dependence on local AC voltage response. Computational methods applied to VTSLM data have proven powerful in the study of superconducting Magnesium Diboride thin films in this age of engineering superconductivity.