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arXiv:1310.1504 · Journal of Applied Physics

Photon-induced thermal effects in superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators

Yiwen Wang, Pin-Jia Zhou, Lian-Fu Wei, Li Hai-Jie, Beihong Zhang, Miao Zhang, Qiang Wei, Yu-Rong Fang, Chunhai Cao

Published Oct 18, 2013• 11 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We experimentally investigated the optical responses of a superconducting niobium resonator. It was found that, with increasing radiation power, the resonance frequency increases monotonically below around 500 mK, decreases monotonically above around 1 K, and exhibits a nonmonotonic behavior at around 700 mK. These observations show that one can operate the irradiated resonator in three temperature regimes, depending on whether two-level system (TLS) effects or kinetic inductance effects dominate. Furthermore, we found that the optical responses at ultra-low temperatures can be qualitatively regarded as a photon-induced thermalization effect of TLSs, which could be utilized to achieve thermal sensitive photon detections.

DOI
10.1063/1.4826271

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We experimentally investigated the optical responses of a superconducting niobium resonator. It was found that, with increasing radiation power, the resonance frequency increases monotonically below around 500 mK, decreases monotonically above around 1 K, and exhibits a nonmonotonic behavior at around 700 mK. These observations show that one can operate the irradiated resonator in three temperature regimes, depending on whether two-level system (TLS) effects or kinetic inductance effects dominate. Furthermore, we found that the optical responses at ultra-low temperatures can be qualitatively regarded as a photon-induced thermalization effect of TLSs, which could be utilized to achieve thermal sensitive photon detections.
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.
The high critical magnetic field and relatively high critical temperature of niobium nitride (NbN) make it a promising material for applications in superconducting quantum technology. However, NbN-based superconducting circuits are sensitive to decoherence sources such as two-level system (TLS) defects. Here, we numerically and experimentally investigate NbN superconducting microwave coplanar waveguide resonator arrays with a 100 nm thickness, capacitively coupled to a common coplanar waveguide on a silicon chip. We observe that the resonators' internal quality factor (QiQ_{i}Qi​) decreases fromQi∼1.07×106Q_{i}\sim 1.07\times 10^{6}Qi​∼1.07×106in a high power regime toQi∼1.36×105Q_{i}\sim 1.36\times 10^{5}Qi​∼1.36×105in 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 (TTT) dependence ofQiQ_{i}Qi​and resonance frequencyfrf_{r}fr​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 measurefrf_{r}fr​andQiQ_{i}Qi​in response to in-plane magnetic fields (B∣∣B_{||}B∣∣​). We verify thatQiQ_{i}Qi​stays well above10410^{4}104up toB∣∣B_{||}B∣∣​= 240 mT in the photon number< ⁣nph ⁣>< \! n_{ph} \! ><nph​>= 1.8 atTTT= 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.
The high critical magnetic field and relatively high critical temperature of niobium nitride (NbN) make it a promising material candidate for applications in superconducting quantum technology. However, NbN-based devices and circuits are sensitive to decoherence sources such as two-level system (TLS) defects. Here, we numerically and experimentally investigate NbN superconducting microwave coplanar waveguide resonator arrays, with a 100 nm thickness, capacitively coupled to a common coplanar waveguide on a silicon chip. We observe that the resonators' internal quality factor (Qi) decreases from Qi ~ 1.07*10^6 in a high power regime (< nph > = 27000) to Qi ~ 1.36 *10^5 in single photon regime at temperature T = 100 mK. 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 dependence internal quality factor and frequency tuning of the coplanar waveguide resonators to characterise the quasiparticle density of NbN. We observe that the increase in kinetic inductance at higher temperatures is the main reason for the frequency shift. Finally, we measure the resonators' resonance frequency and internal quality factor at single photon regime in response to in-plane magnetic fields B||. We verify that Qi stays well above 10^4 up to B|| = 240 mT in the photon number < nph > = 1.8 at T = 100 mK. Our results may pave the way for realising robust microwave superconducting circuits for circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) at high magnetic fields necessary for fault-tolerant quantum computing, and ultrasensitive quantum sensing.
We report the microwave response of coplanar-waveguide (CPW) resonators fabricated from YBa2Cu3O7−δ\mathrm{YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-δ}}YBa2​Cu3​O7−δ​ (YBCO) thin films over temperatures from approximately 70 mK70~\mathrm{mK}70 mK to 40 K40~\mathrm{K}40 K. The resonators exhibit internal quality factors QiQ_\mathrm{i}Qi​ in the range of 4×1034\times10^34×103 to 10410^4104 at 70 mK, which increase to a maximum of approximately 8×1038\times10^38×103 to 1.2×1041.2\times10^41.2×104 near 6 K6~\mathrm{K}6 K. At low temperatures, both QiQ_\mathrm{i}Qi​ and the fractional shift of the resonance frequency Δfr/frΔf_\mathrm{r}/f_\mathrm{r}Δfr​/fr​ increases with temperature, qualitatively resembling behavior commonly associated with two-level-system (TLS) defects. However, neither response saturates on the temperature scale set by the resonator frequency, and the loss exhibits no observable microwave-power dependence. We show that low-temperature frequency upturn may be better described by an additional paramagnetic response associated with defect-induced local moments or Andreev bound states, while the low-temperature loss follows an approximately logarithmic temperature dependence whose microscopic origin remains unresolved. These measurements establish the millikelvin performance of patterned YBCO resonators and show that their low-temperature response cannot be understood within the conventional TLS framework alone.
We present the measurements of the temperature dependence of the internal quality factor ( Q i ) of a microwave resonator, well below the superconducting transition temperature. The device is a quarter-wavelength niobium ( T c = 9.2 K) coplanar waveguide resonator. The measured | S 21 | parameter shows typically the skewed Lorentzian distributions, from which the fitted quality factor monotonically decreases with the temperature increasing from 30 mK to 900 mK. It is observed that for the lower temperature range (i.e., at T < 700 mK) the temperature dependence of the fitted Q i deviates significantly from the predictions of the usual Mattis—Bardeen theory. The measured 3 dB internal quality factor Q ′ i also verifies such an anomalous temperature dependence. Physically, this phenomenon could be attributed dominantly to the effects of the two-level systems in the device, rather than the usual temperature-dependent complex conductance.
We present measurements of the temperature-dependent frequency shift of five niobium superconducting coplanar waveguide microresonators with center strip widths ranging from 3to50μm, taken at temperatures in the range of 100–800mK, far below the 9.2K transition temperature of niobium. These data agree well with the two-level system (TLS) theory. Fits to this theory provide information on the number of TLSs that interact with each resonator geometry. The geometrical scaling indicates a surface distribution of TLSs and the data are consistent with a TLS surface layer thickness of the order of a few nanometers, as might be expected for a native oxide layer.