during the preparation of a josephson junction device , one of the steps for making a base electrode is to deposit a superconducting material on a substrate and to anneal the deposited material to make it a continuous homogeneous polycrystalline grain - like electrode material . ordinarily , the base electrode and the counter electrode materials are deposited in a vacuum system at a vacuum pressure which is below one × 10 - 6 torr to remove all contaminants such as oxygen , oxides of carbon and water vapor . it has been discovered that depositing conventional superconducting base electrode and counter electrode materials in the presence of an inert gas at much high vacuum pressures around 20 × 10 - 3 torr produce a superior lead - gold superconductive electrode which is substantially immune to thermal cycling .