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Chinese Physics B

Superconducting quantum interference devices with different damped junctions operated in directly coupled current- and voltage-bias modes

Jia Zeng, Yi Zhang, Yang Qiu, Guofeng Zhang, Yongliang Wang, Xiangyan Kong, Xiaoming Xie

Published Nov 1, 2014• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We investigate niobium thin film superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) with different Steward—McCumber parameters βc operated in both current- and voltage-bias modes. We experimentally prove that there is no difference between the two bias modes with respect to the SQUID intrinsic noise and the noise contribution from the preamplifier. Furthermore, the relationships of the SQUID dynamic parameters, (Rd)current bias ≈ (Rd)voltage bias and (∂V/∂Φ)current bias ≈ [(∂i/∂Φ)Rd]voltage bias, are always satisfied. For a strongly damped SQUID with βc ≈ 0.25, additional positive feedback (APF) and noise cancellation (NC) were employed to enhance ∂V/∂Φ, the former showing a degradation in the linear flux range but otherwise the same with NC. For a weakly damped SQUID with βc ≈ 3, it is directly connected to the preamplifier without APF or NC, and a low SQUID system noise of about 4 μΦ0/√Hz is measured, which is close to its intrinsic noise.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/23/11/118501

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Review of Scientific Instruments•May 1, 2014•19 citations
We investigate niobium thin film superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) with different Steward—McCumber parameters βc operated in both current- and voltage-bias modes. We experimentally prove that there is no difference between the two bias modes with respect to the SQUID intrinsic noise and the noise contribution from the preamplifier. Furthermore, the relationships of the SQUID dynamic parameters, (Rd)current bias ≈ (Rd)voltage bias and (∂V/∂Φ)current bias ≈ [(∂i/∂Φ)Rd]voltage bias, are always satisfied. For a strongly damped SQUID with βc ≈ 0.25, additional positive feedback (APF) and noise cancellation (NC) were employed to enhance ∂V/∂Φ, the former showing a degradation in the linear flux range but otherwise the same with NC. For a weakly damped SQUID with βc ≈ 3, it is directly connected to the preamplifier without APF or NC, and a low SQUID system noise of about 4 μΦ0/√Hz is measured, which is close to its intrinsic noise.
Dependence of SQUID Intrinsic Flux Noise on Stewart–McCumber Parameter βc\beta_{c}βc​ of Josephson Junction
It is known that three superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) parameters, namely, the intrinsic flux noise δΦs, the flux-to-voltage transfer coefficient ∂V/∂Φ, and the dynamic resistance Rd, increase with increasing the Stewart- McCumber parameter βcof Josephson junction. It is very difficult to obtain the low values of δΦsfor a strongly damped SQUID due to its small ∂V/∂Φ. In this paper, we employ a two-stage scheme (TSS) to measure δΦsdirectly. Here, we use single chip readout electronics and a weakly damped SQUID with a βcof flux noise of the readout-SQUID system is about 4.8 μΦ0/√Hz 1.2, both acting as a readout-SQUID system (a preamplifier). The with a corner frequency of about 10 Hz. The front-end SQUID is coupled to the readout SQUID via the input coil with a mutual inductance of Mi. In our experiment, the flux gain for a readout SQUID, i.e., GΦ= Mi× (∂I/∂Φ)front-endis adjusted to be 20. Using the TSS, we measured δΦswith different βcchanging from 0.3 to 13.5 and found δΦsincreasing from 1.0 to 5.0 μΦ0/√Hz. We also discussed the relations between Ls, βc, and δΦsquantitatively. Finally, we proposed designing a suitable βcto match the preamplifier in a direct readout scheme to simplify a SQUID measurement system.
We investigated niobium thin film superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) with large Steward-McCumber parameter (βc > 1). No hysteresis was observed in the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the SQUIDs, even for βc ≈ 17. We attribute the absence of hysteresis to an excess voltage noise of the junctions which increases the SQUID intrinsic noise δΦs. It can be represented by an effective noise temperature T* of the SQUID which is higher than the bath temperature T. We simulated SQUID I-V characteristics using the measured device parameters and confirmed the absence of hysteresis.
We experimentally studied two important parameters of helium-cooled superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) in the voltage bias mode: the dynamic resistance Rd and the flux-to-current transfer coefficient ∂i/∂Φ, with different junction shunt resistors RJ. We investigated a voltage-biased SQUID using the direct readout current-to-voltage converter scheme involving an operational amplifier. At higher RJ, the flux-to-voltage conversion coefficient ∂V/∂Φ becomes sufficiently large to effectively suppress the room-temperature amplifier's noise without any need for additional feedback circuits. The McCumber parameter limits the rise of ∂V/∂Φ. We discuss the performance of voltage-biased SQUIDs at different effective McCumber parameters.
We experimentally studied weakly damped superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) shunted by an external resistor Rs and operated in either current- or voltage-bias mode. The SQUID parameters, such as the flux-to-voltage transfer coefficient ∂V/∂Φ and the dynamic resistance Rd, are reduced due to Rs, while the SQUID intrinsic noise remains unchanged. The reduced parameters can be enhanced again by using voltage feedback circuitry. Furthermore, Rs can be used to damp the SQUID in order to avoid the appearance of hysteresis or oscillation in SQUID characteristics. SQUID shunted by small Rs is always operated in mixed-bias mode.
Noise matching between superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) sensor and readout electronics has always been an important problem. Conventionally, in order to avoid the hysteresis, SQUIDs should be operated in the range of βccis the Stewart-McCumber parameter. Recently, Liu et al. extended the SQUID operating area to βc > 1 due to a large noise parameter Γ*. When βc> 1, SQUID exhibits a large ∂V/∂Φ, which is beneficial in reducing the noise contribution of the readout electronics, δΦe. In this work, we compare the SQUID system noise δΦsmeasured with four different readout electronics. Here, the four readout electronics employed are as follows: 1) the flux modulation scheme (FMS); 2) the direct readout scheme (DRS), which uses six parallel connected bipolar transistor as its preamplifier (DRS-PCBT); 3) the DRS, which uses a single preamplifier AD797 (DRS-AD797); and 4) the two-stage scheme. The preamplifier voltage noise of DRS-PCBT and DRS-AD797 are about 0.4 nV/√Hz and 0.9 nV/√Hz, respectively. For a two-stage scheme, the equivalent flux noise reaches about 0.25 μΦ0/√Hz, the measured SQUID intrinsic noise, δΦi, will dominate δΦs. In other readout schemes, however, δΦsdepends on the value of βc. Finally, we found that FMS is suitable to match SQUIDs with βccc> 3.
We investigated and optimized the low-frequency noise characteristics of a preamplifier used for readout of direct current superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). When the SQUID output was detected directly using a room-temperature low-voltage-noise preamplifier, the low-frequency noise of a SQUID system was found to be dominated by the input current noise of the preamplifiers in case of a large dynamic resistance of the SQUID. To reduce the current noise of the preamplifier in the low-frequency range, we investigated the dependence of total preamplifier noise on the collector current and source resistance. When the collector current was decreased from 8.4 mA to 3 mA in the preamplifier made of 3 parallel SSM2220 transistor pairs, the low-frequency total voltage noise of the preamplifier (at 0.1 Hz) decreased by about 3 times for a source resistance of 30 Ω whereas the white noise level remained nearly unchanged. Since the relative contribution of preamplifier's input voltage and current noise is different depending on the dynamic resistance or flux-to-voltage transfer of the SQUID, the results showed that the total noise of a SQUID system at low-frequency range can be improved significantly by optimizing the preamplifier circuit parameters, mainly the collector current in case of low-noise bipolar transistor pairs.