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IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement

Bipolar Pulse-Drive Electronics for a Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer

Helko E. van den Brom, Ernest Houtzager, B. Brinkmeier, Oleg A. Chevtchenko

Published Jan 1, 2008• 28 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer (JAWS) has been developed in order to generate quantum-based ac voltage signals. The key component of this JAWS is a modified commercial 30-Gb/s pattern generator that can generate ternary patterns (containing the values 1, 0, and 1, resulting in bipolar pulses). The new pulse-drive electronics have been successfully tested by driving Josephson arrays with bipolar current pulses from 1 to 30 Gb/s in order to study their current-voltage characteristics and the spectra of the JAWS signals.

DOI
10.1109/tim.2007.908607

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IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement•Dec 3, 2008•26 citations
A Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer (JAWS) has been developed in order to generate quantum-based ac voltage signals. The key component of this JAWS is a modified commercial 30-Gb/s pattern generator that can generate ternary patterns (containing the values 1, 0, and 1, resulting in bipolar pulses). The new pulse-drive electronics have been successfully tested by driving Josephson arrays with bipolar current pulses from 1 to 30 Gb/s in order to study their current-voltage characteristics and the spectra of the JAWS signals.
The Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer (JAWS) is a series array of thousands of superconducting Josephson junctions that are biased by current pulses such that the array produces voltage waveforms with quantum accuracy. Intrinsically accurate voltage waveforms synthesized with the quantized pulses from Josephson junctions were first demonstrated in 1996. Ten years later, a commercial ac standard was calibrated at an output root-mean-square (RMS) amplitude of 100 mV with the first practical superconducting digital-to-analog converter. Since then, many different bias techniques, pulse-drive electronics, and device technology have been developed and improved in order to achieve a maximum of 138 mV output RMS voltage per Josephson array. In this paper, we report new bias electronics and demonstrate two new pulse-bias techniques. The first technique has demonstrated 250 mV output RMS voltage per 6400-junction array and may enable a practical 1 V system with only four arrays. The second bias technique reduces inductance-related error signals at the signal frequency and should reduce systematic errors for waveforms with frequencies greater than 1 MHz.
Sub-μm\mu{\rm m}μm SNS Josephson Junction Arrays for the Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer
The experimental set-up of a Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer (JAWS) has been further optimized to generate AC voltages with fundamental accuracy. Josephson junction series arrays for the JAWS, consisting of sub-mum SNS type junctions (superconductor-normal conductor-superdonductor), are fabricated using a technology which combines electron-beam lithography and chemical-mechanical polishing. Bipolar pulses are realized by the superposition of unipolar pulses from a pulse pattern generator and a continuous sinusoidal microwave provided by a signal generator. A second-order delta-sigma modulator is optimized to generate a high-quality pulse code.
We developed an optical pulse-drive for the operation of the Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer (JAWS) using a fast photodiode (PD) operated at 4 K, close to the JAWS chip. The optical pulses are transmitted to the PD by an easily removable optical fiber attached to it. A bare-lensed PD is mounted by flip-chip technique to a custom-made silicon-carrier chip. This carrier chip is equipped with coplanar waveguides to transmit the electrical pulses from the PD to the JAWS chip mounted on a separate printed circtuit board (PCB). The main components of this optical setup are a laser source, a high-speed Mach-Zehnder modulator, and the modulator driver. The waveform pattern is supplied by a commercial pulse pattern generator providing up to 15 GHz electrical return-to-zero (RTZ)-pulses. Unipolar sinusoidal waveforms were synthesized. Using a JAWS array with 3000 junctions, an effective output voltage of 6.6 mV root mean square (RMS) at the maximum available clock-frequency of 15 GHz was achieved. Higher harmonics were suppressed by more than 90 dBc at laser-bias operation margins of more than 1 mA.
The establishment at PTB of an AC Josephson voltage standard (Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer- JAWS) based on pulse-driven Josephson arrays is focused on achieving an output voltage of at least 1 Vrms which is required for many metrology applications. In this paper, we approached this goal by increasing the number of active junctions in two ways. Firstly, we fabricated arrays containing triple-stacked SNS-type Josephson junctions with NbxSi1-xas barrier material. We obtained current operation margins of about 0.2 mA with arrays of up to 9000 Josephson junctions at an rms voltage of 355 mV. Secondly, we used a new 8-channel ternary pulse pattern generator (PPG) to bias up to 8 arrays connected in series. An output voltage of VRMS= 1006 mV(VPP= 2.845 V) was achieved by using 8 arrays (arranged on 4 separate chips) with 63000 junctions in total. Higher harmonics are suppressed by at least -116 dBc. The fabrication process and the experimental setup will be described, as well as experimental results that are leading towards our 1 V goal.
A Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer (JAWS) has been used for the synthesis of bipolar waveform voltage signals. The two major changes with respect to earlier work are the use of Josephson arrays consisting of more junctions and the use of a new type of pattern generator. With a multi-branch Josephson array from IPHT, the synthesized sinusoidal voltages have amplitudes up to 9.5 mV zero to peak and frequencies in the range from 100 Hz to 150 kHz. For instance, for a 9.5 mV sine wave of 122 kHz, the spectrum of the synthesized signal shows that higher harmonics are at least 86 dB below the fundamental. Comparable suppression was achieved with a single-branch Josephson array from PTB generating a 17 mV sine wave of 180 Hz. Additionally, with a PTB array, sinusoidal signals with amplitudes up to 57 mV zero to peak are generated with higher harmonics typically 60 dB to 70 dB below the fundamental at frequencies below a few hundred hertz.
Superconductor-normal metal-superconductor(SNS) Josephson junction series arrays are developed and investigated for applications in the Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer (JAWS). The series arrays contain up to about 10 000 junctions arranged in a meanderlike design. AC voltages and arbitrary waveforms are synthesized by operation of the Josephson junctions by short current pulses. Higher harmonics are at least 110 dB below the fundamental. To verify the generated waveforms, a spectrum analyzer that has initially been calibrated using a binary-divided programmable Josephson voltage standard is used.