Abstract
The spatial resolution of $high-T_{c}$ scanning SQUID microscope is limited by the washer size of SQUID and the gap distance between SQUID sensor and the sample. In this work, we tried to improve the spatial resolution of scanning SQUID microscope by reducing the size of SQUID sensor fabricated with $YBa_2$$Cu_3$$O_{7}$ thin film. Outer dimensions of the SQUiDs we tested are 24 $\mu\textrm{m}$ $\times$ $ 28\mu\textrm{m}$, $12 \mu\textrm{m}$ $\times$ $16\mu\textrm{m}$, $12\mu\textrm{m}$ x $12\mu\textrm{m}$, $10 \mu\textrm{m}$ $\times$ $10 \mu\textrm{m}$ each. To operate them in the flux-locked loop scheme, we used a direct-coupled electronics instead of using conventional electronics involving a modulation scheme. Since the direct-coupled feedback scheme does not require modulation current adjustment that poses as a practical difficulty in the SQUID operation in modulation-scheme, the direct feedback operation is rather simpler than the conventional modulation method. The resulting noise features were dominated by the noise of preamp in FLL electronics except that of the largest SQUID. The noise levels of SQUIDs are expected below 1$\times$$10^{-5}$ $\Phi_{0}$H $z^{1}$2/ (at 300 Hz), that is a typical noise level for SQUID made of $YBa_2$C $u_3$$O_{7}$ thin film. The data acquisition and motion-controlling parts were also improved, resulting in faster data acquisition rate and less vibration of the system.m.