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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Operating Margins of a 10 V Programmable Josephson Voltage Standard Circuit Using ${\rm NbN}/{\rm TiN}_{x}/{\rm NbN}/{\rm TiN}_{x}/{\rm NbN}$ Double-Junction Stacks

Hirotake Yamamori, Mayumi Ishizaki, Hitoshi Sasaki, Akira Shoji

Published Jun 1, 2007• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The operating margins of a 10 V programmable Josephson voltage standard circuit using Operating margins of a 10 V programmable josephson voltage standard circuit using NbN/TiNx/NbN/TiNx/NbN double-junction stacks was investigated as a function of microwave frequency and operating temperature. The circuit contained 32 arrays of 5 120 Operating margins of a 10 V programmable josephson voltage standard circuit using NbN/TiNx/NbN/TiNx/NbN double-junction stacks. In other words, the circuit contained 327 680 Operating margins of a 10 V programmable Josephson voltage standard circuit using NbN/TiNx/NbN/TiNx/NbN junctions. It was found that the operating margins (the heights of the constant-voltage step) of the arrays varied largely with microwave frequency and operating temperature. The microwave-frequency dependence was due to the resonance of the microwaves in the circuit. The temperature dependence of the circuit was due to the temperature dependence of the IcRnproduct of the junctions, where Icwas the critical current Rnand was the normal resistance. Fortunately, however, the operating margin was maximized by changing the temperature of the chip, mounted on the cold head of a cryocooler.

DOI
10.1109/tasc.2007.901444

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Stacked (NbN/TiNx)N/NbN (N = 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10) Josephson junctions and their arrays have been fabricated on a Si chip and their microwave-induced characteristics were measured at a temperature around 10 K. To achieve a vertical and smooth edge of an NbN - TiNxmultilayer, an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE) technique was used. Current-voltage characteristics measured for stacks of (NbN/TiNx)N/NbN Josephson junctions without microwave indicated that critical currents for those junctions distribute in a certain range. We defined Ic- spread as (IcMAX- IcMIN)/IcAverage to measure the distribution of Ic. The Ic- spread was minimized when the thickness of intermediate electrodes was d = 50 nm. We also evaluated values of Ic- spread for stacks prepared at different fabrication runs as a function of the number of junctions in a stack N. As a result, we found N = 3 is the maximum for practical use. For arrays, we obtained a constant-voltage step height of about 2 m A for 2 048 stacks of double-barrier junctions (N = 2), and about 1 mA for 1 024 stacks of triple-barrier junctions (N = 3).

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•Jun 1, 2010•3 citations
Operating Margins of a 10 V Programmable Josephson Voltage Standard Circuit Using NbN/TiNx/NbN/TiNx/NbN{\rm NbN}/{\rm TiN}_{x}/{\rm NbN}/{\rm TiN}_{x}/{\rm NbN}NbN/TiNx​/NbN/TiNx​/NbN Double-Junction Stacks
The operating margins of a 10 V programmable Josephson voltage standard circuit using Operating margins of a 10 V programmable josephson voltage standard circuit using NbN/TiNx/NbN/TiNx/NbN double-junction stacks was investigated as a function of microwave frequency and operating temperature. The circuit contained 32 arrays of 5 120 Operating margins of a 10 V programmable josephson voltage standard circuit using NbN/TiNx/NbN/TiNx/NbN double-junction stacks. In other words, the circuit contained 327 680 Operating margins of a 10 V programmable Josephson voltage standard circuit using NbN/TiNx/NbN/TiNx/NbN junctions. It was found that the operating margins (the heights of the constant-voltage step) of the arrays varied largely with microwave frequency and operating temperature. The microwave-frequency dependence was due to the resonance of the microwaves in the circuit. The temperature dependence of the circuit was due to the temperature dependence of the IcRnproduct of the junctions, where Icwas the critical current Rnand was the normal resistance. Fortunately, however, the operating margin was maximized by changing the temperature of the chip, mounted on the cold head of a cryocooler.
Programmable Josephson voltage standard (PJVS) circuits using arrays of NbN/TiN/NbN/TiN/NbN double-junction stacks were fabricated and operated at a temperature of 10 K. Four arrays each with 32 768 junctions produced expected voltage outputs when driven at (10, 15, 17, and 20) GHz with an operating current range of 0.2-1.0 mA. Another circuit showed constant-voltage steps at /spl plusmn/6 V when driven with an 11 GHz microwave bias, indicating that over 260 000 junctions were operating properly. This circuit did not show constant-voltage steps when driven with a 19 GHz microwave bias, which was the design frequency to achieve /spl plusmn/10 V output voltage.
Using NbN∕TiNx∕NbN∕TiNx∕NbN double-junction stack technology we have demonstrated a programmable Josephson voltage standard chip that operates up to 10.16V output voltage cooled with a two-stage Gifford–McMahon cryocooler. The circuit uses double-junction stacks, where two junctions are fabricated in each stack, in order to integrate 327 680 junctions into a 15.3mm×15.3mm chip. A 1-to-32 microwave distribution circuit is also integrated on the chip. The chip is divided into 22 cells, which perform as an 11-bit digital-to-analog converter. The 21 working cells include 307 200 junctions biased with 16GHz microwaves at 10.2K that generated flat voltage steps with current margins greater than 1mA, which indicates good uniformity of the stacked junctions.
Microwave-Induced Characteristics of (NbN/TiNx)N/NbN{({\rm NbN/TiN}_{\rm x})}_{N}/{\rm NbN}(NbN/TiNx​)N​/NbN StackedJosephson Junction Arrays
Stacked (NbN/TiNx)N/NbN (N = 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10) Josephson junctions and their arrays have been fabricated on a Si chip and their microwave-induced characteristics were measured at a temperature around 10 K. To achieve a vertical and smooth edge of an NbN - TiNxmultilayer, an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE) technique was used. Current-voltage characteristics measured for stacks of (NbN/TiNx)N/NbN Josephson junctions without microwave indicated that critical currents for those junctions distribute in a certain range. We defined Ic- spread as (IcMAX- IcMIN)/IcAverage to measure the distribution of Ic. The Ic- spread was minimized when the thickness of intermediate electrodes was d = 50 nm. We also evaluated values of Ic- spread for stacks prepared at different fabrication runs as a function of the number of junctions in a stack N. As a result, we found N = 3 is the maximum for practical use. For arrays, we obtained a constant-voltage step height of about 2 m A for 2 048 stacks of double-barrier junctions (N = 2), and about 1 mA for 1 024 stacks of triple-barrier junctions (N = 3).
A 10-V programmable Josephson voltage standard (PJVS) circuit including 524 288 vertically stacked NbN/TiN/NbN Josephson junctions was successfully fabricated without any defects. The chip was cooled with a compact cryocooler at a temperature of 9.8 K and generated an output voltage of 17.3 V with the first Shapiro step height of 1.0 mA under microwave irradiation at 16 GHz. Furthermore, the circuit design having the high output voltage increased the number of available chips for the 10-V PJVS. The fabrication yield for the chip, which generates greater than 10 V, was 36%, which is ten times greater than that for a perfect chip without any defects. This method was not effective for the chip that had serious defects, such as a disconnection across the array or short between the array and ground; thus, efforts to reduce such defects, e.g., frequent maintenance inside vacuum chambers for film preparation and etching, were found to be essential.