Abstract We demonstrate the operation of superconducting coplanar microwave resonators in a very large frequency range up to 50 GHz. The resonators are fabricated from niobium thin films on sapphire substrates and have fundamental frequencies of 5 GHz or 10 GHz. We study numerous harmonics of the resonators at temperatures between 1.5 K and 6 K, and we determine quality factors of up to 22 600 at 1.5 K. As an example for spectroscopy applications of such resonators we detect the superconducting transition of a bulk tin sample at multiple probing frequencies.
Abstract We demonstrate the operation of superconducting coplanar microwave resonators in a very large frequency range up to 50 GHz. The resonators are fabricated from niobium thin films on sapphire substrates and have fundamental frequencies of 5 GHz or 10 GHz. We study numerous harmonics of the resonators at temperatures between 1.5 K and 6 K, and we determine quality factors of up to 22 600 at 1.5 K. As an example for spectroscopy applications of such resonators we detect the superconducting transition of a bulk tin sample at multiple probing frequencies.
Planar superconducting microwave resonators are commonly operated for various cryogenic applications, typically at frequencies between 2 and 15 GHz. But for certain applications, e.g. microwave spectroscopy to study the dynamics of charges and spins in solids, a wider spectral range is desired. Driving such microwave resonators at higher frequencies is challenging due to enhanced losses and reduced wavelength. Here we present superconducting stripline resonators operating at multiple frequencies as high as 50 GHz. These resonators are fabricated of Pb and can easily be adjusted to particular applications, including mK temperatures in a dilution refrigerator. Demonstrating such a resonator as a spectroscopic tool, we detect the superconducting transition of a Sn sample in a wide spectral range.
Measurements are made on superconducting Niobium on Sapphire and oxidized Silicon microwave coplanar resonators for quantum bit experiments. Device geometry and materials are investigated and quality factors in excess of a million have been observed. The resonant frequency as a function of temperature of a coplanar resonator is characterised in terms of the change in the number density of superconducting electrons. At lower temperatures, the resonant frequency no longer follows this function, and evidence is shown that this is associated with the resonant coupling of the resonant frequency with two level systems in the substrate. At T<2.2 K the resonant frequency scales logarithmically with the temperature, indicating that two level systems distributed in the volume of the Silicon Dioxide affect the electric permittivity. Applying higher input microwave power levels is shown to saturate these two level systems, essentially decoupling them from the CPR resonance. This is observed as an increase in resonant frequency and Q factor. The resonant frequency is also shown to have a high sensitivity to a magnetic field applied perpendicular to the plane of the coplanar resonator, with a quadratic dependence for the fundamental, second and third harmonics. Frequency shift of hundreds of linewidths are obtained. Coplanar resonator are fabricated and measured with current control lines built on chip, and these have shown to produce frequency shifts of tens of Kilohertz.
The sensitivity of a kinetic inductance detector is determined by the performance of the cavity circuit and therefore a high quality factor and low phase noise are required. We developed superconducting niobium coplanar waveguide resonators for kinetic inductance detectors at a resonance frequency of 6 GHz. The length of the resonators is adjusted to a quarter of a wavelength which corresponds to ≈ 5.3 mm in our geometry. Different layouts with coplanar waveguide transmission line topology for the resonator were designed and simulated. Some parameters of the device fabrication process were varied. The niobium thin films were deposited by magnetron sputtering on sapphire substrates kept at ambient temperature. The resonators were patterned by photolithography and reactive ion etching and measured at helium temperatures. Because of the quarter wave geometry with one shorted end the reflection parameter was measured. We have studied the influence of the coupling capacitances on quality factor. The optimization includes microwave simulations and implementation in different resonator structures. The measurements of optimized devices showed a very high quality factor above one million (10 6 ). The obtained results and perspective on further development of resonators will be discussed.
The use of a transmission line resonator offers the possibility for different sensor readout methods, e.g. flux qubit and kinetic inductance detectors. Both cases require a high quality factor, Q L , of the cavity circuit to detect small deviations in the resonance frequency. Various superconducting niobium coplanar waveguide resonators of λ/4 and λ/2 wavelength for 3 and 6 GHz were developed. Different layouts for the coplanar resonators were designed, simulated and measured on common silicon and sapphire substrates at 4.2 K. We found a very good agreement between simulation and measurement results, with Q L between 10 4 and 10 5 at helium temperatures. The presented results show the dependences on the chosen cross section geometries, the coupling factor and the complex layout of the transmission line.
We report our development on design, fabrication and characterization of various superconducting resonators for quantum device applications. The resonators are developed mainly for superconducting qubit implementation in circuit QED structure, but future application will include photon detectors such as microwave kinetic inductance detectors. First we designed and fabricated half-wavelength coplanar waveguide resonators with niobium thin film on a high resistive silicon wafer, with the fundamental frequencies in the range of 1 to 8 GHz. The loaded quality factors are controlled by the coupling capacitors, and the lower bound of the intrinsic quality factor was measured down to 7 mK in the dilution refrigerator. We have also designed quarter-wavelength resonators and lumped LC resonators coupled to a transmission line, and characterized multiple resonators in a single transmission line. For the 3D transmon qubit application, we designed and fabricated a rectangular box resonator with superconducting aluminum. The intrinsic quality factor of the box resonator exceeds three million at 7 mK. We will also present basic results on the integration of a transmon qubit in the superconducting resonator.
In this master's thesis, I present the design, fabrication, and characterisation of superconducting microwave resonators. These resonators are quarter-wavelength coplanar waveguide resonators, operating at resonance frequencies between 4 GHz and 8 GHz. This kind of resonator is a key component in several applications, ranging from quantum computation devices to parametric amplifiers. Minimising the losses (achieving high internal quality factors) in these resonators is important to maximise performance of the applications they are used for. During the thesis work, we have studied several possible changes to improve the resonator quality.\n\nFabrication of the resonators was done in the Nanofabrication Laboratory at Chalmers University of Technology, and consist of the following steps: cleaning a sapphire or silicon wafer, depositing a layer of superconducting niobium, photolithography, and etching the waveguide. We then measured the resonators in a cryogen-free dilution refrigerator, at a temperature of 10 mK. The measurements consisted of a power sweep, in order to quantify the quality factor at high and low excitation powers. As an example, the first resonator we fabricated had a quality factor of 4.3 x 10^4 at high power (about 10^5 photons in the resonator), and quality factor of 3.7 x 10^4 at the single-photon level.\n\nWe then investigated different loss mechanisms that we expect to negatively affect the quality factor, and how to reduce this loss. Firstly, to reduce radiation losses and magnetic vortex losses, we reduced the lateral dimensions of the resonator. Secondly, as two-level system (TLS) losses are believed to mainly reside at the surfaces of the materials and interfaces between them, we etched into the substrate to selectively move a part of the TLS away from the resonator. We also studied the effect of the meandering of the resonator on the quality factor, as well as using two different etching gasses.\n\nBy gathering all this data, we were then able to compare the different combinations to see the effect of the changing parameters. In conclusion, the reduced lateral dimensions and the removal of part of the substrate indeed reduce the losses, as expected from the theory. We also found interesting behaviour with regards to the meandering, namely that having a meandered structure negatively affects the quality factor.\n\nCombining all results, we can give a guideline for the fabrication of resonators in the future, which gave us a quality factor up to 4.9 x 10^5 at high excitation power, and 3.0 x 10^5 at the single photon level.