Vacuum-Gap Capacitors for Low-Loss Superconducting Resonant Circuits
  Low-loss microwave components are used in many superconducting resonant circuits from multiplexed readouts of low-temperature detector arrays to quantum bits. Two-level system defects in amorphous dielectric materials cause excess energy loss. In an effort to improve capacitor components, we have used optical lithography and micromachining techniques to develop superconducting parallel-plate capacitors in which lossy dielectrics are replaced by vacuum gaps. Resonance measurements at 50 mK on lumped LC circuits that incorporate these vacuum-gap capacitors (VGCs) reveal loss tangents at low powers as low as 4x10^{-5}, significantly lower than with capacitors using amorphous dielectrics. VGCs are structurally robust, small, and easily scaled to capacitance values above 100 pF. 
Katarina Cicak, Michael S. Allman, Joshua A. Strong, Kevin D. Osborn,   Raymond W. Simmonds