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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

NbSi Barrier Junctions Tuned for Metrological Applications up to 70 GHz: 20 V Arrays for Programmable Josephson Voltage Standards

F. Muller, Thomas Scheller, Ruediger Wendisch, Ralf Behr, Oliver Kieler, L. Palafox, J. Kohlmann

Published Dec 21, 2012• 61 citations
Publisher

Abstract

PTB started using the robust NbxSi1-xbarrier junction technology for the fabrication of large arrays for the Programmable Josephson Voltage Standard (PJVS) and for the Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer 3 years ago. We demonstrate how Nb-doping of the amorphous Si barrier causes the transition from an underdamped to a desired overdamped junction behavior. Special dc SQUIDs have been used to evaluate junction capacitance and noise properties. The critical current of small junctions as a function of applied magnetic field has been investigated. On the basis of an existing 70 GHz design previously used for 10 V PJVS chips, we fabricated for the first time 20 V circuits with nearly 140 000 double-stacked Josephson junctions. A direct on-chip comparison between the two 10 V halves of the binary-divided array confirmed the metrological suitability of the 20 V circuits for dc and ac applications.

DOI
10.1109/tasc.2012.2235895

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PTB started using the robust NbxSi1-xbarrier junction technology for the fabrication of large arrays for the Programmable Josephson Voltage Standard (PJVS) and for the Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer 3 years ago. We demonstrate how Nb-doping of the amorphous Si barrier causes the transition from an underdamped to a desired overdamped junction behavior. Special dc SQUIDs have been used to evaluate junction capacitance and noise properties. The critical current of small junctions as a function of applied magnetic field has been investigated. On the basis of an existing 70 GHz design previously used for 10 V PJVS chips, we fabricated for the first time 20 V circuits with nearly 140 000 double-stacked Josephson junctions. A direct on-chip comparison between the two 10 V halves of the binary-divided array confirmed the metrological suitability of the 20 V circuits for dc and ac applications.
Overdamped Josephson junctions for AC voltage standards are realized with NbxSi1-xbarrier junctions at PTB. The characteristic parameters of the junctions can be tuned over a wide range by adjusting the Nb content and the thickness of the barrier. For the pulse-driven Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer (JAWS), series arrays of up to 15,000 Josephson junctions have been fabricated using junction stacks containing five Josephson junctions. In addition, two types of on-chip power dividers have been investigated at PTB, namely Wilkinson and serial-parallel power dividers, respectively. These developments aim for further increasing the number of Josephson junctions on a single chip and thus for increasing the output voltage.
Series arrays of overdamped Josephson junctions compose the basis of AC Josephson voltage standards. Presently, an advanced technology is based on Josephson junctions consisting of an NbxSi1-xbarrier. Using junction stacks containing five Josephson junctions, series arrays of 15,000 junctions have been successfully fabricated at PTB for the pulse-driven Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer (JAWS). The operation of eight arrays simultaneously enable spectrally pure waveforms with output voltages above 1 V to be synthesized.
Programmable Josephson voltage standard (PJVS) circuits were developed that operate at 16 GHz to 20 GHz with operating margins larger than 1 mA. Two circuit designs were demonstrated, each having a total of ~ 300,000 junctions, which were divided into either 16 or 32 sub-arrays. Triple-stacked junctions were used in order to fit the ~300,000 junctions on each circuit. The amorphous NbxSi1-x-barrier junction technology provided a high degree of uniformity of the barrier and junction electrical properties, which was necessary to achieve the 1 mA operating margin. Although the margins on both the 16-array and 32-array circuits were much greater than 1 mA, the circuit yield for the 16-array design was lower because the longer arrays are more sensitive to defects. The use of lumped-element microwave splitters and tapered arrays significantly reduced the microwave input power and increased the operating margins of these designs. In addition, the broadband microwave response of the designs allowed the PJVS output voltage to be continuously adjusted by using the microwave frequency while remaining on margins.
Programmable Josephson voltage standards (PJVSs) in combination with fast switchable DC current sources have opened up new applications in the field of low-frequency AC metrology. The growing interest in output voltages of up to plusmn10 V initiated efforts by several National Metrological Institutes to realize 10 V PJVSs. Presently, only 10 V PJVSs from PTB based on SINIS junctions have been successfully incorporated into existing setups for AC metrology. However, the fabrication of 10 V SINIS arrays that are driven at 70 GHz suffers from very low yield. The recent technological progress made at NIST enabled the drop-in replacement of the low-yield SINIS arrays by more robust SNS arrays. The N-material is an amorphous NbxSi1-xalloy near the metal-insulator transition and is deposited by co-sputtering. For the first time, fully operational 1 V and 10 V PJVSs with SNS junctions that are suitable for a 70 GHz drive have been fabricated and tested. This work was done in close cooperation between NIST and PTB.
At Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), superconducting 10 V circuits for the programmable Josephson voltage standard (PJVS) are routinely manufactured on the basis of NbxSi1-x barrier junctions. This paper describes in detail the basic design principles for an operating frequency of 70 GHz. It starts with single junctions, discusses their insertion into microstriplines and closes with the whole microwave circuit containing 69,632 NbxSi1-x barrier junctions arranged over 128 microstriplines connected in parallel. The microwave attenuation of this junction type is a key parameter for the 10 V design and we report its experimental determination. Special attention has been devoted to subarrays with just a few Josephson junctions in one of the outermost striplines. The arrangement of these subarrays determines the optimum performance of the complete 10 V series array. The high performance of programmable 10 V circuits fabricated at PTB is characterized by measured operating margins in all subarrays of more than 1 mA centered at the same dc bias current. The observed modulation of the current margins, when changing the frequency around 70 GHz, is explained by microwave reflections caused by the rf waveguide inside the cryoprobe. We determine the current margins in dependence of the output power of a microwave synthesizer and show that 60 mW is sufficient to achieve current margins larger than 1 mA.