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Journal of Low Temperature Physics

Design and Characterisation of Titanium Nitride Subarrays of Kinetic Inductance Detectors for Passive Terahertz Imaging

D. Morozov, Simon M. Doyle, Archan Banerjee, Thomas L. R. Brien, Dilini Hemakumara, Iain G. Thayne, K. Wood, Robert H. Hadfield

Published Jul 18, 2018• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report on the investigation of titanium nitride (TiN) thin films deposited via atomic layer deposition (ALD) for microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKID). Using our in-house ALD process, we have grown a sequence of TiN thin films (thickness 15, 30, 60 nm). The films have been characterised in terms of superconducting transition temperature $$T_\mathrm{c}$$ , sheet resistance $$R_\mathrm{s}$$ and microstructure. We have fabricated test resonator structures and characterised them at a temperature of 300 mK. At 350 GHz, we report an optical noise equivalent power $$\hbox {NEP}_\mathrm{opt} \approx 2.3\times 10^{-15}~\hbox {W}/\sqrt{\hbox {Hz}}$$ , which is promising for passive terahertz imaging applications.

DOI
10.1007/s10909-018-2023-z

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Open Research Europe•Apr 17, 2025•1 citation
We report on the investigation of titanium nitride (TiN) thin films deposited via atomic layer deposition (ALD) for microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKID). Using our in-house ALD process, we have grown a sequence of TiN thin films (thickness 15, 30, 60 nm). The films have been characterised in terms of superconducting transition temperature TcT_\mathrm{c}Tc​ , sheet resistance RsR_\mathrm{s}Rs​ and microstructure. We have fabricated test resonator structures and characterised them at a temperature of 300 mK. At 350 GHz, we report an optical noise equivalent power NEPopt≈2.3×10−15 W/Hz\hbox {NEP}_\mathrm{opt} \approx 2.3\times 10^{-15}~\hbox {W}/\sqrt{\hbox {Hz}}NEPopt​≈2.3×10−15 W/Hz​ , which is promising for passive terahertz imaging applications.
We present an experimental study of kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) fabricated of atomic layer deposited TiN films and characterized at radiation frequencies of 350 GHz. The responsivity to radiation is measured and found to increase with the increase in radiation powers, opposite to what is expected from theory and observed for hybrid niobium titanium nitride/aluminium (NbTiN/Al) and all-aluminium (all-Al) KIDs. The noise is found to be independent of the level of the radiation power. The noise equivalent power improves with higher radiation powers, also opposite to what is observed and well understood for hybrid NbTiN/Al and all-Al KIDs. We suggest that an inhomogeneous state of these disordered superconductors should be used to explain these observations.
Abstract Low microwave loss and regulatable kinetic inductance are two key characteristics of superconducting films to manufacture high-performance quantum devices. Epitaxial titanium nitride (TiN) thin films have been found to exhibit significant advantages in these two aspects. In this paper, we investigated into the dielectric loss and kinetic inductance of epitaxial TiN films, which were prepared on both silicon and sapphire substrates with different temperatures. Crystal structure, surface morphology, and superconducting properties were characterized systematically. The radio-frequency response of microwave resonators made of TiN films was studied at low temperatures to extract the information of kinetic inductance and quality factor. We obtained the highest internal quality factor up to 1.6 × 10 6 at single photon regime and achieved a regulation of kinetic inductance exceeding 16 times by altering the substrate and the sputtering temperature of the TiN films. This work not only provides an essential foundation for the precise design and preparation of low-loss TiN resonators for superconducting quantum bits, but also demonstrates TiN film as an excellent material platform with both low microwave loss and high kinetic inductance that can be applied in other fields such as microwave kinetic inductance detectors.
The non-homogeneity in the critical temperature TcT_{c}Tc​ of an Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) could be caused by non-uniformity in the deposition process of the thin superconducting film. This produces low percent yield and frequency collision in the readout of the MKIDs. Here, we show the homogeneity that offers Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). We report an improvement of up to a factor of 50 in the fractional variation of the TcT_{c}Tc​ for TiN MKIDs fabricated with Atomic Layer Deposition in comparison with MKIDs fabricated with sputtering. We measured the critical temperature of 48 resonators. We extracted the TcT_{c}Tc​ of the MKIDs by fitting the fractional resonance frequency to the complex conductivity of their resonators. We observed uniformity on the critical temperature for MKIDs belonging to the same fabrication process, with a maximum change in the TcT_{c}Tc​ of 60 mK for MKIDs fabricated on different wafers.
We designed and fabricated a microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) using a niobium nitride (NbN) symmetric spiral resonator array. Previously we revealed that a rewound spiral structure works as not only a high-Q half-wavelength resonator but also as a broadband terahertz antenna. We conducted simulations for a 9 resonator array assuming NbN as the superconducting material and sapphire as the dielectric substrate, and obtained a maximum attenuation of over 30 dB and unloaded quality factors of over 2 × 10 5 for frequencies between 4.4 and 4.9 GHz. We fabricated the 9 resonator array MKID using NbN thin film deposited on an m-sapphire substrate by using dc magnetron sputtering. We observed half-wavelength resonances of around 4.5 GHz at 4 K. We measured the optical response of the MKID. The frequency shift was 0.5 MHz when illuminated with 650 nm photons.
Abstract Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) combine significant advantages for photon detection like single photon counting, single pixel energy resolution, vanishing dark counts and µs time resolution with a simple design and the feasibility to scale up into the megapixel range. But high quality MKID fabrication remains challenging as established superconductors tend to either have intrinsic disadvantages, are challenging to deposit or require very low operating temperatures. As alternating stacks of thin Ti and TiN films have shown very impressive results for far-IR and sub-mm MKIDs, they promise significant improvements for UV, visible to near-IR MKIDs as well, especially as they are comparably easy to fabricate and control. In this paper, we present our ongoing project to adapt proximity coupled superconducting films for photon counting MKIDs. Some of the main advantages of Ti/TiN multilayers are their good control of critical temperature (Tc) and their great homogeneity of Tc even over large wafers, promising improved pixel yield especially for large arrays. We demonstrate the effect different temperatures during fabrication have on the detector performance and discuss excess phase noise observed caused by surface oxidization of exposed Si. Our first prototypes achieved photon energy resolving powers of up to 3.1 but turned out to be much too insensitive. As the work presented is still in progress, we also discuss further improvements planned for the near future.
Background Kinetic inductance travelling-wave parametric amplifiers (KITWPAs) have proven effective in achieving high gain over broad bandwidths whilst achieving near quantum-limited noise performance, properties which are extremely important for many ultra-sensitive experiments such as radio/millimetre/sub-millimetre astronomy, neutrino mass experiments, and axion dark matter searches, as well as commercial applications like quantum computational and communication systems. Methods This paper introduces the preliminary experimental exploration of an alternative KITWPA utilising thin titanium nitride (TiN) films as opposed to the conventionally used niobium titanium nitride (NbTiN) films. TiN films exhibit properties that could be advantageous for KITWPA operation, owing to its controllable critical temperature (T c) and physical robustness, hence KITWPAs fabricated from TiN films have the potential to replace NbTiN-based TWPAs for various applications, such as reducing the high pump power required to drive a NbTiN TWPA. Our TiN-based KITWPA devices were designed and fabricated with a 42 cm long coplanar waveguide transmission line patterned into a 100 nm thick TiN film, wound in a double spiral fashion to fit into a 2.2×2.2 cm chip. Results We successfully achieved broadband performance, with the best device displaying a peak averaged gain of ~5 dB with a bandwidth of ~3–13 GHz, making this one of the first broadband gain measurements of a TiN KITWPA reported in the literature. Despite this, the measured gain in all batches was lower than simulated due unexpected additional loss mechanisms. Conclusions The preliminary results presented here suggest that TiN films are suitable for KITWPA operation, although further investigation is required to improve the gain performance.