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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Mutual phase locking in systems of high-Tc superconductor-normal metal-superconductor junctions

C. D. Reintsema, Ronald H. Ono, Todd E. Harvey, Nancy A. Missert, Leila R. Vale

Published Jul 2, 1994• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have investigated the interaction between high critical temperature (high-Tc) superconductor-normal metal- superconductor step-edge junctions coupled through a non- superconducting feedback loop. We have characterized the strength of the interaction as a function of frequency and temperature for both a circuit without a groundplane and an all high-Tc multilayer circuit incorporating a superconducting ground plane. We observed relative locking strengths (the ratio of the measured locking current IL to the junctions average critical current Ic) as large as ILIcequals9% and peak locking frequencies as high as 1.06 THz. The maximum temperature at which locking occurred was 35 K. An analysis of the temperature dependence of the locking current accounting for thermal fluctuations in the context of Johnson noise from resistive elements in the circuit agrees well with our experimental observations.© (1994) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

DOI
10.1117/12.181005

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•Jan 1, 2001•0 citations
We have investigated the interaction between high critical temperature (high-Tc) superconductor-normal metal- superconductor step-edge junctions coupled through a non- superconducting feedback loop. We have characterized the strength of the interaction as a function of frequency and temperature for both a circuit without a groundplane and an all high-Tc multilayer circuit incorporating a superconducting ground plane. We observed relative locking strengths (the ratio of the measured locking current IL to the junctions average critical current Ic) as large as ILIcequals9% and peak locking frequencies as high as 1.06 THz. The maximum temperature at which locking occurred was 35 K. An analysis of the temperature dependence of the locking current accounting for thermal fluctuations in the context of Johnson noise from resistive elements in the circuit agrees well with our experimental observations.© (1994) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Mutual phase locking between two high-temperature step-edge superconducting-normal metal-superconducting junctions has been investigated using a two-junction circuit with a nonsuperconducting feedback path. The strength of the phase-locked state has been characterized as a function of locking frequency and temperature. Results are presented for a planar circuit as well as for a multilayer circuit incorporating a superconducting ground plane. The observed behavior was significantly enhanced for the circuit over a ground plane. Characterization of the phase locked state at 4 K yielded locking strengths as large as ‖IL‖/Īc=9%, and maximum locking frequencies to 1.06 THz. The magnitude of the locking strength decreased rapidly with increasing temperature with complete loss of coherence occurring at temperatures greater than 35 K.
We have demonstrated mutual phase locking of two YBa2Cu3O7 Josephson junction oscillators in the frequency range from 0.2 to 1 THz. A maximum power of 0.2 μW was delivered to a distributed 8 Ω load at 0.7 THz. The corresponding dc locking current, ‖IL‖, was 43 μA. A maximum locking current of 75 μA at 0.44 THz or 7% of the critical current agrees well with a calculated maximum value of 6% for this circuit. The excellent high frequency operation is due to the use of a lumped microstrip circuit and a high characteristic voltage of the grain boundary junctions (1.7 mV at 4 K). This circuit was continuously tunable for all frequencies and was operated from 4 to 60 K.
We have developed a microwave circuit using ten parallel-biased high-temperature superconductor Josephson junctions to demonstrate phase-locking for applications such as oscillators, mixers, and detectors. The basic cell consists of two Josephson junctions enclosed in a microstrip resonator, which provides voltage-locking and low dynamic resistance in the current–voltage characteristic. Partial synchronization of the ten junctions was observed up to 45 K and up to 1 THz. The implications of this design for power and radiation linewidth will be discussed.
We have fabricated step edge superconductor-normal metal-superconductor microbridges using YBa2Cu3O7−x(YBCO) and noble metals with critical current-normal resistance (IcRN) products as high as 10 mV and normal resistances up to 38 Ω. Our fabrication process achieves high values of the IcRN product by exploiting the anisotropy in the properties of epitaxial YBCO films, allowing contact only between normal metal and superconductor through the crystalline axes which support the largest Josephson coupling. This results in a dramatic increase in the normal resistance of a junction without decreasing its critical current. We discuss the role of the superconductor-normal metal boundary resistance on the junction electrical properties. We have coupled submillimeter wave rf currents quasioptically into junctions integrated at the feeds of noble metal planar log periodic antennas and have induced up to 7 Shapiro steps in the current-voltage characteristics with a 760 GHz beam from a far infrared laser.
Thermodynamic fluctuations limit the ultimate performance of superconducting devices of practical interest, devices such as the quantum interference magnetometer and the Josephson junction radiation detector. We report direct observations of thermodynamically driven quantum phase fluctuations near the superconducting critical temperature. The experiments used point-contact quantum interference techniques with niobium points on a single-crystal tin substrate. Near the superconducting transition of tin, TC=3.72°K, the niobium points served as probes to measure fluctuations in the phase of the superconducting order parameter within the tin crystal. The temperature was slowly increased, beginning well below TC for tin, where the quantum phase was stable. Quantum phase fluctuations were first observed approximately 5 mdeg below TC. As the temperature continued to increase through this 5 mdeg range near TC, the characteristic frequency of the phase fluctuations increased 6 orders of magnitude. At TC a discontinuous transition to a resistive state gave rise to a finite voltage difference in the tin with the associated driven quantum phase precession. Thermodynamic Johnson noise voltages developed across this resistance of order 10−10Ω observably broadened the precession line. We will present the detailed temperature dependence of the frequency power spectrum of quantum phase fluctuations below and above TC.
Josephson junctions made from high temperature superconductors (HTS) are active high frequency devices which can be used as oscillators or frequency mixers in the submillimeter-wave region. The frequencies of these electromagnetic waves range from 300 GHz up to 3 THz. Up to now, this wave band is a relatively unexploited region of the electromagnetic spectrum because it is very difficult to produce and detect submillimeter-waves. However, submillimeter-wave technologies are becoming important in many practical scientific applications such as radio astronomy, atmospheric research, plasma diagnostics and THz-imaging, recently. In this work, the behaviour HTS Josephson junctions have been investigated experimentally and theoretically with the aim to THz-applications. In the first part the behaviour of intrinsic Josephson junction stacks are measured, and the possibility of phase locking is discussed by the theoretical analysis of two different shunt technologies depending on the parameter spread of the junction and the shunt parameters. It could be shown that stacks made from sputtered BSCCO layers does not act as intrinsic Josephson junction arrays because of their many micro shorts resulting from the layer growth. However, the stacks made from sputtered TBCCO show clear intrinsic Josephson junction behaviour. But their quasiparticle branches in the current-voltage characteristic deviate from the behaviour predicted by the common used RCSJ model. These branches can be discussed within a tunneling model using d-wave superconductor density of states. A temperature dependent current distribution and a zero bias anomaly was found. Furthermore, the coherent behaviour is studied for intrinsic arrays with additional side-wall shunts. The existence of thresholds of phase locking at especial junction and shunt parameters are demonstrated and discussed in regard to THz-oscillator applications. It was found that the Josephson junctions in a stack can be phase locked even if they have a parameter spread in the critical current up to 15% using a resonant shunt. In the second part of this work the mixing properties of HTS bicrystal Josephson junctions as wave guide mixers for 115 and 345 GHz have been investigated. (orig.)