We measure current fluctuations of mesoscopic devices in the quantum regime, when the frequency is of the order of or higher than the applied voltage or temperature. Detection is designed to probe separately the absorption and emission contributions of current fluctuations, i.e. the positive and negative frequencies of the Fourier transformed nonsymmetrized noise correlator. It relies on measuring the quasiparticles photon assisted tunneling current across a superconductor-insulator-superconductor junction (the detector junction) caused by the excess current fluctuations generated by quasiparticles tunneling across a Josephson junction (the source junction). We demonstrate unambiguously that the negative and positive frequency parts of the nonsymmetrized noise correlator are separately detected and that the excess current fluctuations of a voltage biased Josephson junction present a strong asymmetry between emission and absorption.
We consider quantum fluctuations in a current biased overdamped Josephson junction in the regime when the bias current is larger than the critical current. The fluctuations of the voltage and phase across the junction are assumed to be initiated by equilibrium current fluctuations in the shunting resistor. This corresponds to low enough temperatures, when fluctuations of the normal current in the junction itself can be neglected. Quantum effects are important when the resistor temperature is low compared to the Josephson frequency, even in the case when noise is measured at frequencies lower than the temperature. We used the quantum Langevin equation in terms of random variables related to the limit cycle of the nonlinear Josephson oscillator. This allows to go beyond the perturbation theory and calculate the widths of the Josephson radiation lines.
Critical current fluctuations with a 1∕f spectral density (f is frequency) are potentially a limiting source of intrinsic decoherence in superconducting quantum bits (qubits) based on Josephson tunnel junctions. Prior measurements of this noise were made at nonzero voltages whereas qubits are operated in the zero voltage state. We report measurements of 1∕f noise in a dc superconducting quantum interference device first, coupled to a resonant tank circuit and operated in a dispersive mode at zero voltage, and, second, operated conventionally with a current bias in the voltage regime. Both measurements yield essentially the same magnitude of critical current 1∕f noise.
The existence of the third cumulant
S3 of voltage fluctuations has demonstrated the non-Gaussian aspect of shot noise in electronic transport. Until now, measurements have been performed at low frequency, \textit{i.e.} in the classical regime
ℏω<eV,kBT where voltage fluctuations arise from charge transfer process. We report here the first measurement of
S3 at high frequency, in the quantum regime
ℏω>eV,kBT. In this regime, experiment cannot be seen as a charge counting statistics problem anymore. It raises central questions of the statistics of quantum noise: 1) the electromagnetic environment of the sample has been proven to strongly influence the measurement, through the possible modulation of the noise of the sample. What happens to this mechanism in the quantum regime? 2) For
ℏω>eV, the noise is due to zero point fluctuations and keeps its equilibrium value:
S2=Gℏω with
G the conductance of the sample. Therefore,
S2 is independent of the bias voltage and no photon is emitted by the conductor. Is it possible, as suggested by some theories, that
S3=0 in this regime? With regard to these questions, we give theoretical and experimental answers to the environmental effects showing that they involve dynamics of the quantum noise. Using these results, we investigate the question of the third cumulant of quantum noise in the a tunnel junction.
The nonlocal superconducting fluctuation corrections to the conductivity tensor
σij(q,ω) are calculated within the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau framework, and their observable consequences for quantum noise magnetometry are worked out. For a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) sensor we obtain the relaxation rate
1/T1 as a function of temperature, sample-sensor distance, and probe frequency, identifying the scales at which the nonlocality and the dynamics of the pair fluctuations cut off the critical enhancement near
Tc. For two-sensor covariance magnetometry we show that the two-point field correlator develops additional spatial structure whose range directly measures the fluctuation correlation length
ξ(T). We further analyze two channels that accompany the paraconductivity: the Maki-Thompson correction to the spin susceptibility, and the fluctuation diamagnetism. Finally, we solve exactly, to all orders in a dc electric field and at all wave vectors, for the nonequilibrium current noise of the fluctuating film: the noise decouples from the nonlinear paraconductivity, violating the fluctuation-dissipation theorem by universal factors at criticality and acquiring a bias-induced spatial anisotropy directly measurable by covariance magnetometry. The results are connected to a recent experiment measuring current noise near a thin film of BSCCO.
We derive fluctuation-dissipation relations for a tunnel junction driven through a resonator displaying strong quantum fluctuations. We find that the fluctuation-dissipation relations derived for classical external drives hold, provided the effect of the circuit's quantum fluctuations is incorporated into the modified nonlinear current voltage characteristics. We also demonstrate that all quantities measured under a time dependent bias can be reconstructed from their values measured under a dc bias using photoassisted tunneling relations. We confirm these predictions by implementing the circuit and measuring the dc current through the junction, its high frequency admittance, and its current noise at the frequency of the resonator.