  Conventional electron beam lithography has been used to fabricate mesoscopic
Nb wires with a superconducting transition temperature above 7.0 K. The typical
line width and the thickness were 200 nm and 45 nm respectively. Nb was
deposited in an ultra-high vacuum evaporation chamber using electron gun
heating. All samples exhibited a normal-superconducting transition. The
transition temperature decreased with thickness and line width. To demonstrate
the feasibility of two angle evaporation techniques we also fabricated small
Nb/(Al-)AlO_x/Nb tunnel junctions.
