arXiv:0802.4268 · Applied Physics Letters

Temperature dependence of the frequency and noise of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators

Shwetank Kumar, Jiansong Gao, Jonas Zmuidzinas, Benjamin A. Mazin, Henry G. LeDuc, Peter K. Day

Published Mar 24, 2008• 74 citations

Abstract

We present measurements of the temperature and power dependence of the resonance frequency and frequency noise of superconducting niobium thin-film coplanar waveguide resonators carried out at temperatures well below the superconducting transition (Tc=9.2K). The noise decreases by nearly two orders of magnitude as the temperature is increased from 120to1200mK, while the variation of the resonance frequency with temperature over this range agrees well with the standard two-level system (TLS) model for amorphous dielectrics. These results support the hypothesis that TLSs are responsible for the noise in superconducting microresonators and have important implications for resonator applications such as qubits and photon detectors.

DOI: 10.1063/1.2894584

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arXiv:0802.4268 · Applied Physics Letters

Temperature dependence of the frequency and noise of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators

Shwetank Kumar, Jiansong Gao, Jonas Zmuidzinas, Benjamin A. Mazin, Henry G. LeDuc, Peter K. Day

Published Mar 24, 2008• 74 citations

arXiv HTML PDF

Abstract

DOI: 10.1063/1.2894584

Related papers

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Q_{i}

) decreases from

Q_{i}\sim 1.07\times 10^{6}

in a high power regime to

Q_{i}\sim 1.36\times 10^{5}

in the single photon regime. Data from this study is consistent with the TLS theory, which describes the TLS interactions in resonator substrates and interfaces. Moreover, we study the temperature (

T

) dependence of

Q_{i}

and resonance frequency

f_{r}

of coplanar waveguide resonators to characterize the quasiparticle density. We observe that the increase in kinetic inductance at higher temperatures is the main reason for the frequency shift. Finally, we measure

f_{r}

and

Q_{i}

in response to in-plane magnetic fields (

B_{||}

). We verify that

Q_{i}

stays well above

10^{4}

up to

B_{||}

= 240 mT in the photon number

< \! n_{ph} \! >

= 1.8 at

T

= 100 mK. Our results could enable the development of robust microwave superconducting circuits for circuit quantum electrodynamics at high magnetic fields required for hybrid superconducting-semiconducting quantum circuits.