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arXiv:2403.08347

1/f frequency fluctuations due to kinetic inductance in CoSi$_2$ microwave cavities

Weijun Zeng, Ilari Lilja, Ekaterina Mukhanova, Elica Anne Heredia, Chun-Wei Wu, Elalaily, Tosson, Lin, Juhn-Jong, Yeh, Sheng-Shiuan, Pertti Juhani Hakonen

Published Mar 13, 2024• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Cobalt disilicide provides a promising nearly-epitaxial superconducting material on silicon, which is compatible with high-density integrated circuit technology. We have characterized CoSi$_{2}$ superconducting microwave cavities around 5.5 GHz for resonance frequency fluctuations at temperatures 10 - 200 mK. We found relatively weak fluctuations $(δf/f)^2$ following the spectral density $A/f^γ $, with $A \simeq 6 \times 10^{-16}$ and $γ$ slightly below 1 at an average number of photons of $10^4$; the noise decreased with measurement power as $1/P^{1/2}$. We identify the noise as arising from kinetic inductance fluctuations and discuss possible origins of such fluctuations.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2403.08347

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1/f frequency fluctuations due to kinetic inductance in CoSi2_22​ microwave cavities
Cobalt disilicide provides a promising nearly-epitaxial superconducting material on silicon, which is compatible with high-density integrated circuit technology. We have characterized CoSi2_{2}2​ superconducting microwave cavities around 5.5 GHz for resonance frequency fluctuations at temperatures 10 - 200 mK. We found relatively weak fluctuations (δf/f)2(δf/f)^2(δf/f)2 following the spectral density A/fγA/f^γ A/fγ, with A≃6×10−16A \simeq 6 \times 10^{-16}A≃6×10−16 and γγγ slightly below 1 at an average number of photons of 10410^4104; the noise decreased with measurement power as 1/P1/21/P^{1/2}1/P1/2. We identify the noise as arising from kinetic inductance fluctuations and discuss possible origins of such fluctuations.
Cobalt disilicide provides a promising nearly epitaxial superconducting material on silicon, which is compatible with high-density integrated circuit technology. We have characterized CoSi2 superconducting microwave cavities around 5.5 GHz for resonance frequency fluctuations at temperatures of 10–200 mK. Comparing with materials used in kinetic inductance detectors, we found relatively weak fluctuations (δfr/f0)2 following the spectral density A/fγ, with A ≃ 6 × 10−16 and γ slightly below 1 at an average number of photons of 30; the noise decreased with measurement power as 1/P1/2. The connection of the frequency fluctuations to two-level states and kinetic inductance fluctuations due to resistance noise is discussed.
We have looked into cobalt disilicide (CoSi2) as a potential building block for superconducting quantum circuits. In order to achieve this, we annealed a thin layer of Co to create microwave cavities with thickness of d = 10–105 nm from CoSi2 embedded in the silicon substrate. The cavity properties were measured as a function of temperature and power. In the films measuring 10 and 25 nm, we find a significant kinetic inductance LK with a non-BCS power-law variation δLK ∝ T4.3±0.2 at low temperatures. The quality factor of the studied microwave resonances varied from 3 × 103 (d = 10 nm) to ∼5 × 104 (d = 105 nm) and increased as d(A − log d) with thickness, with two-level systems having very little effect. The power dependence of kinetic inductance was analyzed in terms of heat flow due to electron–phonon coupling, which was found to be stronger than estimated for heat relaxation by regular quasiparticles.
Superconducting boron-doped silicon is a promising material for integrated silicon quantum devices. In particular, its low electronic density and moderate disorder make it a suitable candidate for the fabrication of large inductances with low losses at microwave frequencies. We study experimentally the electrodynamics of superconducting silicon thin layers using coplanar waveguide resonators, focusing on the kinetic inductance, the internal losses, and the variation of these quantities with the resonator readout power. We report the observation in a doped semiconductor of microwave resonances with internal quality factors of a few thousand. As expected in the BCS framework, superconducting silicon presents a large sheet kinetic inductance in the 50--500-pH range, comparable to that of strongly disordered superconductors. The temperature dependence of the kinetic inductance is well described by the Mattis-Bardeen theory. However, we find an unexpectedly strong nonlinearity in the complex surface impedance that cannot be satisfactorily explained either by depairing or by quasiparticle heating.
Abstract A microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) is a cutting-edge superconducting detector. It comprises a resonator circuit constructed with a superconducting film on a dielectric substrate. To expand its field of application, it is important to establish a method to suppress the two-level system (TLS) noise that is caused by the electric fluctuations between the two energy states at the surface of the substrate. The electric field density can be decreased by expanding the strip width (S) and gap width from the ground plane (W) in the MKID circuit, allowing the suppression of TLS noise. However, this effect has not yet been confirmed for MKIDs made with niobium films on silicon substrates. In this study, we demonstrate its effectiveness for such MKIDs. We expanded the dimension of the circuit from (S, W) = (3.00 μm, 4.00 μm) to (S, W) = (5.00 μm, 23.7 μm), and achieved an increased suppression of 5.5 dB in TLS noise.
As a newly developed pair-breaking superconducting detector, microwave kinetic inductance detectors are simple to integrate in the frequency domain and have already been used in astronomical detection and array imaging at the (sub)millimeter and optical wavelengths. For these applications, the dark noise level of kinetic inductance detector is one of the key performance indicators. Herein a noise power spectrum analysis method is introduced in detail, which can accurately and effectively analyze the noise spectrum of kinetic inductance detector in a wide frequency range. This method can well balance the noise spectrum resolution and variance performance, by taking the noise data at the resonance frequency with two sampling rates and setting the appropriate frequency resolutions for different frequency bands. This method is used to characterize and compare the noise of aluminum (Al) kinetic inductance detectors made from two different micromachining processes. We deposite a 25-nm-thick aluminum film on high-resistivity silicon substrate for one device, while place one silicon nitride (SiNx) film on the top and one on the bottom of the aluminum film for another device. It is found that the frequency noise of the device with two silicon nitride films is about 25% to 50% of the bare aluminum device. Using this double silicon nitride film fabrication technique, we further fabricate a few groups of lumped-element aluminum kinetic inductance detectors with various inductor and interdigitated capacitor designs. We investigate the noise properties of these devices at different microwave driven power and bath temperatures, and the experimental results show typical two-level system noise behaviors. Our work provides a standard method to characterize the noise power spectrum of kinetic inductor detector, and also paves the way to developing low-noise aluminum kinetic inductance detectors for terahertz imaging, photon-counting and energy-resolving applications.
Advancements in the fabrication of superconducting quantum devices have highlighted tantalum as a promising material, owing to its low surface oxidation microwave loss at low temperatures. However, tantalum films exhibit significantly larger kinetic inductances compared to materials such as aluminum or niobium. Given the inevitable variations in film thickness, this increased kinetic inductance leads to considerable, uncontrolled frequency variances and shifts in components like superconducting coplanar waveguide (SCPW) resonators. Achieving high precision in resonator frequencies is crucial, particularly when multiple resonators share a common Purcell filter with limited bandwidth in superconducting quantum information processors. Here, we tackle this challenge from both fabrication and design perspectives, achieving a reduction in resonator frequency fluctuation by a factor of more than 100. Concurrently, the internal quality factor of the SCPW resonator remains at high level. Our findings open up new avenues for the enhanced utilization of tantalum in large-scale superconducting chips.