Probing wetting and solidification dynamics of neon thin films with a high- T c superconducting circuit

Integrating condensed noble gases with superconducting circuits offers new opportunities for operating hybrid quantum devices. In particular, electrons on solid neon have recently emerged as exceptionally coherent charge qubits, however the growth of the underlying neon films on patterned devices remains poorly controlled. We monitor neon films near the triple point using a multimode resonator fabricated from high- T c YBCO, which remains superconducting at temperatures where the liquid phase exists and whose geometry sets a thickness-sensing window near 1 μ m. In the liquid state we observe rich film dynamics: uniform wetting that saturates near 20 nm, drainage of thicker films, and spontaneous thickness oscillations, reflecting the extreme sensitivity of thick films in this regime. A galvanic connection to our sensing volume enables in-situ electrostatic tuning of the liquid film thickness. Statistics of freezing the neon across various liquid levels reveal variations of the solid film thickness by approximately an order of magnitude. We also observe a two-fold increase in the quality factor of the resonators at the level of 10 cubed with added neon and rule out dielectric loss as the limiting factor. Our results demonstrate that hermetic packaging facilitates the investigation of both rich non-equilibrium fluid dynamics and the impact of condensed noble gas films on microwave loss in superconducting circuits, but may not be the best modality for growing solid neon films with precisely controlled thickness.