A dielectric resonator with a gap between the top plate and the rest has been useful for measuring the penetration depth (λ) of superconductor films, a parameter essential for obtaining the intrinsic microwave surface resistance (Rs) of thin superconductor films. We investigated effects of a gap on the microwave properties of TE0ml-mode sapphire resonators with a gap between the top plate and the rest of the resonator. Regardless of a 10 µm-gap in TE0ml-mode sapphire resonators, variations of the TE0ml-mode resonant frequency on temperature (Δf0) as well as TE0ml-mode unloaded Q remained almost the same due to lack of axial currents inside the resonator and negligible radiation effects. The λ of YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) films obtained from a fit to the temperature-dependent Δf0 appeared to be 195 nm at 0 K and 19.3 GHz, which was well compared with the corresponding value of 193 nm at 10 kHz measured by the mutual inductance method. The intrinsic Rs of YBCO films on the order of 1 mΩ, and the tan δ of sapphire on the order of 10-8 at 15 K and 40 GHz could be measured simultaneously using sapphire resonators with a 10 µm-gap.

A method using the microstrip line resonator is applied to measurements of the dielectric properties of a substrate and the surface resistance of a conducting strip line versus the frequency as well as the temperature. The variational expressions for the capacitance per unit length of several microstrip lines such as an inverted microstrip line and multi-layer microstrip lines are derived. The expression involves an integral along a semi-infinite interval, but the numerical integration is very easy. Effects of a buffer layer deposited on the substrate are investigated by using a multi-layer microstrip line model. The permittivity and the loss tangent of several dielectric materials are measured by the MSL and the IMSL or the multi-layer microstrip resonator. The measured surface resistance of copper and iron is also presented to show the validity of the present method. The surface resistance of a BSCCO thick film is also presented.

An improvement of Q evaluation is discussed. The Resonance Curve Area method was confirmed to give a deviation in the order of 6104. The result was three times more accurate than the widely known Q evaluating method which utilizes the cursor function installed in a network analyzer. A discussion is also made on the physical validity of the RCA method. It is shown that the application of the RCA method improves the accuracy of the cavity perturbation method. Actual measurements have shown that the deviation of dielectric constant is less than 1% and that of the loss tangent is less than 3%, in the order of 104. The accuracy of the RCA method was estimated to be three times that of the conventional cavity perturbation technique. The consistency of the perturbation with other methods has also confirmed. The accuracy comparison to more accurate formulae derived from a rigorous solution have shown that the difference is sufficiently small.