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Bulletin of the American Physical Society

Optically Activated Two-Level Systems in a Thin-Film Superconducting Microwave Resonator

Rangga P. Budoyo, Jared Hertzberg, C.J. Ballard, Kristen Voigt, J. R. Anderson, Christopher J. Lobb, F. C. Wellstood

Published Mar 5, 2014• 0 citations
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We have illuminated a thin-film superconducting Al lumped-element microwave resonator with 780 nm light and observed the resonator quality factor and resonance frequency as a function of illumination and microwave power in the 20 to 300 mK temperature range. The optically induced microwave loss increases with increasing illumination but decreases with increasing microwave power. Although this behavior may suggest the presence of optically activated two-level systems, we find that the loss is better explained by the presence of nonequilibrium quasiparticles generated by the illumination and excited by the microwave drive. We model the system by assuming that the illumination creates an effective source of phonons with energy higher than double the superconducting gap and solve the coupled quasiparticle-phonon rate equations. We fit the simulation results to our measurements and find good agreement with the observed dependence of the resonator quality factor and frequency shift on temperature, microwave power, and optical illumination. Examination of the model reveals approaches to reducing optically induced loss and improving the relaxation time of superconducting quantum devices.
We present a systematic analysis of the internal losses of superconducting coplanar waveguide microwave resonators based on niobium thin films on silicon substrates. In particular, we investigate losses introduced by Nb/Al interfaces in the center conductor, which is important for experiments where Al based Josephson junctions are integrated into Nb based circuits. We find that these interfaces can be a strong source for two-level state (TLS) losses, when the interfaces are not positioned at current nodes of the resonator. In addition to TLS losses, for resonators including Al, quasiparticle losses become relevant above 200 mK. Finally, we investigate how losses generated by eddy currents in conductive material on the backside of the substrate can be minimized by using thick enough substrates or metals with high conductivity on the substrate backside.