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Journal of Applied Physics

Characteristics of asymmetric superconducting quantum interference devices

G. Testa, E. Sarnelli, S. Pagano, Claudia Roberta Calidonna, Mario Mango Furnari

Published May 1, 2001• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Direct current-superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) characterized by asymmetric Josephson junctions have never been used for applications. In order to demonstrate their potential advantages, a throughout numerical analysis of different asymmetric configurations has been carried out. A damping resistance has been included in the SQUID circuit and the thermal noise associated with junction and damping resistances has been considered in the numerical model. Magnetic modulations and flux noise spectral densities have been computed as a function of many parameters (bias current, asymmetry, SQUID inductance, and damping resistance) and the performance of symmetric and asymmetric devices have been compared. The results show that, by properly optimizing the SQUID design, asymmetric SQUIDs are characterized by higher magnetic flux to voltage transfer coefficient and lower flux noise. As a result, asymmetric configurations can be very useful in all the applications where high sensitivity is required.

DOI
10.1063/1.1360219

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Direct current-superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) characterized by asymmetric Josephson junctions have never been used for applications. In order to demonstrate their potential advantages, a throughout numerical analysis of different asymmetric configurations has been carried out. A damping resistance has been included in the SQUID circuit and the thermal noise associated with junction and damping resistances has been considered in the numerical model. Magnetic modulations and flux noise spectral densities have been computed as a function of many parameters (bias current, asymmetry, SQUID inductance, and damping resistance) and the performance of symmetric and asymmetric devices have been compared. The results show that, by properly optimizing the SQUID design, asymmetric SQUIDs are characterized by higher magnetic flux to voltage transfer coefficient and lower flux noise. As a result, asymmetric configurations can be very useful in all the applications where high sensitivity is required.
Direct current superconducting quantum interference devices made by Josephson junctions with asymmetric shunt resistances have been numerically investigated in the low temperature regime. When combined with a damping resistance, the asymmetry leads to a flux to voltage transfer coefficient several times larger than the one typical of symmetric devices, together with a lower magnetic flux noise. These results show that this type of asymmetric device may replace the standard ones in a large number of magnetometric applications, improving the sensitivity performance. The large transfer coefficient may also simplify the readout electronics allowing a direct coupling of asymmetric devices to an external preamplifier, without the need of an impedance matching flux transformer.
Abstract Designing superconducting electronic devices involves a careful study of all the elements in the circuit, including the superconducting bias leads. In this work, we introduce a theoretical model for two-dimensional (2D) superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) arrays capable of simulating the voltage-to-magnetic flux response of devices with different bias current configurations. First, we compare uniformly biased and centre biased SQUID arrays by investigating the voltage versus magnetic flux response, maximum transfer function and voltage modulation depth. Then, we calculate the time-averaged fluxoid distributions for one-dimensional (1D) and 2D centre biased arrays. Finally, we study the performance of the two bias current configurations depending on array size, screening parameter, thermal noise strength and kinetic self-inductance fraction. Our calculations reveal: (i) centre biased 1D parallel SQUID arrays present an unusual voltage response caused by the asymmetric fluxoid distribution; (ii) the optimal transfer function of centre biased arrays strongly depends on the number of junctions in parallel; (iii) the performance of centre biased arrays approaches the uniform biased ones when the number of junctions in series exceeds those in parallel; (iv) while the screening parameter and the thermal noise strength clearly affect the device performance, the kinetic to self-inductance fraction seems to play only a secondary role.
We have fabricated and characterized the noise performance of well-coupled Nb-Pb alloy edge junction dc superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) with a resistively shunted inductance. The extra damping resistor removes the resonances in the current-voltage characteristics resulting in a very low value of the extrinsic energy sensitivity in flux-locked-loop operation. Numerical simulations, with the junction capacitance included, indicate that the damping resistance does not degrade noise performance until it is significantly less than the junction-shunting resistance. We also tested different SQUID designs and demonstrated that a large SQUID inductance, proposed earlier to be desirable when resistively shunted, can seriously affect the low-frequency flux noise.
It has been shown that the voltage versus flux (V-Φ) relation of dc superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) operating at T=77 K is degraded considerably by thermal noise. Since degradation of modulation voltage in the V-Φ relation becomes more significant when inductance increases, a very restricted range of inductance exists which can be used at T=77 K. In order to reduce the degradation due to thermal noise and to enable the use of large inductances, a new SQUID using three Josephson junctions (3J-SQUID) is proposed. Numerical simulation shows that inductance of 3J-SQUID can be increased to twice as large as that of the conventional case without degrading modulation voltage. It is also shown that modulation voltage is highly improved by damping resistance parallel to inductance. As a result, we can expect to use inductances as large as L<500 pH if 3J-SQUID with damping resistance is employed. Large inductances available in 3J-SQUID will be useful in realizing efficient coupling of external magnetic field to the SQUID inductance.
High-Tc_\text{c}c​ SQUID Optimization: Exploring Competing Design and Operating Parameters
Improving the design of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) for quantum sensing applications can involve a compromise between competing device parameters. For SQUIDs made from high-temperature superconductors (HTS), accurate modelling for optimization should include the device geometry, material properties and their temperature dependences, as well as thermal noise. We outline here a lumped element model that calculates the voltage response to magnetic flux of a hairpin SQUID and use it to explore the effect of these parameters on optimizing the SQUID voltage output. We first validate our model by showing close agreement with current-voltage and voltage-flux measurements performed on Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide hairpin SQUIDs with different geometries by including structures such as the bias leads. We show the effect of track width on the kinetic to geometric inductance ratios (κ\kappaκ) for a range of film thicknesses and temperatures, to aid researchers how to optimize SQUID designs. Then, through numerical simulations, we show on how (i) the voltage modulation depth decreases exponentially with the total inductance, independent of the asymmetry ratio; (ii) narrower superconducting tracks lead to a broader temperature operation range,ΔT∼30\Delta T \sim 30ΔT∼30K, while wider tracks operate in a narrower temperature range,ΔT∼10\Delta T \sim 10ΔT∼10K, but are more sensitive to temperature changes; and (iv) the optimal bias current, which maximises the device performance, depends on the operating temperature.
Properties of white noise of a high-Tc dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) have been studied using numerical simulation. It is shown that thermal noise at T=77 K significantly affects the noise properties of the SQUID. As a result, dependencies of noise properties on inductance become quite different from conventional results at T=4.2 K. In contrast to the case T=4.2 K, the voltage noise of the SQUID at T=77 K depends very weakly on the inductance, while the transfer function degrades rapidly with inductance. Consequently, rapid degradation of flux noise with inductance, as compared with the case T=4.2 K, is caused mainly by that of the transfer function. These simulation results explain reasonably experimental results reported recently. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the transfer function for the improvement of noise properties in the case of large inductances. Numerical simulation shows that a method for improving the transfer function using resistively shunted inductance or three Josephson junctions, which was proposed by the authors, is also useful for improving noise properties in the case of large inductances.