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Technical Physics Letters

A Superconducting Resonator with a Hafnium Microbridge at Temperatures of 50–350 mK

Alexey V. Merenkov, S. V. Shitov, Vladimir I. Chichkov, Andrey B. Ermakov, Kim T. M., Alexey Vladimirovich Ustinov

Published Jul 1, 2018• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A high-quality superconducting resonator with a microbridge of hafnium film for use in a circuit for readout a terahertz-band imaging array with frequency division multiplexing is demonstrated experimentally. The variability of the impedance of the bridge at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, which is a key factor in the control of the quality of the resonator, is studied. The bridge, having a thickness of about 50 nm, a critical temperature T C ≈ 380 mK, and a plan size of 2.5 × 2.5 μm, was connected as a load of a resonator made of niobium film with a thickness of about 100 nm ( T C ~ 9 K). It is shown that the bridge smoothly changes its impedance proportionally to the bias power in the entire temperature range. The effective thermal insulation of the bridge was measured in a dilution cryostat at temperatures of 50–300 mK. Thermal conductivity G of the bridge was calculated and found to be ~4 × 10 –13 W/K, which gives an estimate of the sensitivity of the structure in the bolometric mode NEP ≈ 8 × 10 –19 W/Hz 1/2 at a temperature of 150 mK.

DOI
10.1134/s106378501807012x

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AbstractA high-quality superconducting resonator with a microbridge of hafnium film for use in a circuit for readout a terahertz-band imaging array with frequency division multiplexing is demonstrated experimentally. The variability of the impedance of the bridge at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, which is a key factor in the control of the quality of the resonator, is studied. The bridge, having a thickness of about 50 nm, a critical temperature T _ C ≈ 380 mK, and a plan size of 2.5 × 2.5 μm, was connected as a load of a resonator made of niobium film with a thickness of about 100 nm ( T _ C ~ 9 K). It is shown that the bridge smoothly changes its impedance proportionally to the bias power in the entire temperature range. The effective thermal insulation of the bridge was measured in a dilution cryostat at temperatures of 50–300 mK. Thermal conductivity G of the bridge was calculated and found to be ~4 × 10^–13 W/K, which gives an estimate of the sensitivity of the structure in the bolometric mode NEP ≈ 8 × 10^–19 W/Hz^1/2 at a temperature of 150 mK.

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We describe the first phase of experimental study of the superconducting bridge RFTES detector at temperatures 20-300 mK including the measurement of its thermal conductance, which fits the model of electron gas heating. We discuss the idea of the RFTES scheme, which is based on the probing of microwave loss near superconducting transition of the bridge. The heat applied to the bridge is generated by the probing signal at the frequency of the high-Q resonator. Since the real part is dominating in the nonlinear impedance of the bridge, the applied heat provides merely amplitude modulation of Q suggesting the suppression of phase jitter of the resonator. The bridge was made from a 50-nm-thick hafnium film (TC≈ 380 mK) sized to 2.5 μm × 2.5 μm. The resonator and the rest of the circuit were made from 200-nm-thick film of niobium (TC≈ 9 K) demonstrating the loaded Q-factor up to and above 10 000 at 1.5 GHz. A cryogenic semiconductor amplifier was used in the readout circuit. The thermal conductance was measured using the steady Q regime of the resonator and found to follow T5down to and below G ≈ 1×10-13W/K. The NEP below 10-18W/√Hz is estimated for the electron temperature of the bridge about 300 mK.

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A high-quality superconducting resonator with a microbridge of hafnium film for use in a circuit for readout a terahertz-band imaging array with frequency division multiplexing is demonstrated experimentally. The variability of the impedance of the bridge at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, which is a key factor in the control of the quality of the resonator, is studied. The bridge, having a thickness of about 50 nm, a critical temperature T C ≈ 380 mK, and a plan size of 2.5 × 2.5 μm, was connected as a load of a resonator made of niobium film with a thickness of about 100 nm ( T C ~ 9 K). It is shown that the bridge smoothly changes its impedance proportionally to the bias power in the entire temperature range. The effective thermal insulation of the bridge was measured in a dilution cryostat at temperatures of 50–300 mK. Thermal conductivity G of the bridge was calculated and found to be ~4 × 10 –13 W/K, which gives an estimate of the sensitivity of the structure in the bolometric mode NEP ≈ 8 × 10 –19 W/Hz 1/2 at a temperature of 150 mK.
AbstractA high-quality superconducting resonator with a microbridge of hafnium film for use in a circuit for readout a terahertz-band imaging array with frequency division multiplexing is demonstrated experimentally. The variability of the impedance of the bridge at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, which is a key factor in the control of the quality of the resonator, is studied. The bridge, having a thickness of about 50 nm, a critical temperature T _ C ≈ 380 mK, and a plan size of 2.5 × 2.5 μm, was connected as a load of a resonator made of niobium film with a thickness of about 100 nm ( T _ C ~ 9 K). It is shown that the bridge smoothly changes its impedance proportionally to the bias power in the entire temperature range. The effective thermal insulation of the bridge was measured in a dilution cryostat at temperatures of 50–300 mK. Thermal conductivity G of the bridge was calculated and found to be ~4 × 10^–13 W/K, which gives an estimate of the sensitivity of the structure in the bolometric mode NEP ≈ 8 × 10^–19 W/Hz^1/2 at a temperature of 150 mK.
We describe the first phase of experimental study of the superconducting bridge RFTES detector at temperatures 20-300 mK including the measurement of its thermal conductance, which fits the model of electron gas heating. We discuss the idea of the RFTES scheme, which is based on the probing of microwave loss near superconducting transition of the bridge. The heat applied to the bridge is generated by the probing signal at the frequency of the high-Q resonator. Since the real part is dominating in the nonlinear impedance of the bridge, the applied heat provides merely amplitude modulation of Q suggesting the suppression of phase jitter of the resonator. The bridge was made from a 50-nm-thick hafnium film (TC≈ 380 mK) sized to 2.5 μm × 2.5 μm. The resonator and the rest of the circuit were made from 200-nm-thick film of niobium (TC≈ 9 K) demonstrating the loaded Q-factor up to and above 10 000 at 1.5 GHz. A cryogenic semiconductor amplifier was used in the readout circuit. The thermal conductance was measured using the steady Q regime of the resonator and found to follow T5down to and below G ≈ 1×10-13W/K. The NEP below 10-18W/√Hz is estimated for the electron temperature of the bridge about 300 mK.
We demonstrated and analyzed the smooth microwave-driven transition of a superconducting bridge made from Hf into its normal state at bath temperatures below the critical temperature of Hf (T c ≈ 380 mK). The bridge is integrated on a silicon chip with both the 600-700 GHz double-slot antenna and the 1.5-GHz CPW quarter-wave resonator (Q-factor ∼10 4 ) made from 100-nm Nb film. The experimental bridge was sized 2.5 um by 2.5 um by 50 nm and tested at temperatures down to 50 mK. Similar to the technique of MKID, we measured the dependence of transmission S 21 on microwave power at the bottom of the resonance curve. It was found that the microwave power absorbed in the bridge fits to the model of hot electron gas, P∼T e 6 -T ph 6 . The internal NEP down to ≈10 −18 W/⎷Hz is estimated due to thermal noise at the optimum electron gas temperature, T e ≈ 320 mK. The NEP can be scaled down below ≈10 −19 W/√Hz via reasonable reduction of the bridge volume. The new detector circuit is suitable for integration within a large imaging array exploiting the FDM-readout.
We present a superconducting noise bolometer for terahertz radiation, which is suitable for large-format arrays. It is based on an antenna-coupled superconducting micro-bridge embedded in a high-quality factor superconducting resonator for a microwave bias and readout with frequency-division multiplexing in the GHz range. The micro-bridge is kept below its critical temperature and biased with a microwave current of slightly lower amplitude than the critical current of the micro-bridge. The response of the detector is the rate of superconducting fluctuations, which depends exponentially on the concentration of quasiparticles in the micro-bridge. Excess quasiparticles are generated by an incident THz signal. Since the quasiparticle lifetime increases exponentially at lower operation temperature, the noise equivalent power rapidly decreases. This approach allows for large arrays of noise bolometers operating above 1 K with sensitivity, limited by 300-K background noise. Moreover, the response of the bolometer always dominates the noise of the readout due to relatively large amplitude of the bias current. We performed a feasibility study on a proof-of-concept device with a 1.0 × 0.5 μm2 micro-bridge from a 9-nm thin Nb film on a sapphire substrate. Having a critical temperature of 5.8 K, it operates at 4.2 K and is biased at the frequency 5.6 GHz. For the quasioptical input at 0.65 THz, we measured the noise equivalent power ≈3 × 10−12 W/Hz1/2, which is close to expectations for this particular device in the noise-response regime.
Our new detector and readout concept brings together TES (Transition Edge Sensor) and MKID (Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector) technologies and exploits the idea of a microwave-induced superconducting transition in a small thin-film microbridge. The superconducting transition of the bridge manifests itself as variation in the Q -factor of niobium resonators at 5-8 GHz, somewhat similar to MKID operation. We present data showing the potential for developing this concept into multipixel detector arrays. Single-pixel sensitivity was measured at 4.5 K for an input band of 600-700 GHz using a prototype 10-nm-thick Nb bridge of size 1 μm × 500 nm. Radiation from human skin was detected with a resolution better than 1 K/rtHz, which is encouraging for terahertz imaging applications. To further improve device sensitivity, we are also developing Hf-based devices that operate near 0.35 K. Details about the physics and stability of these devices are discussed.
Abstract Superconducting microwave resonators have recently gained a primary importance in the development of cryogenic applications, such as circuit quantum electrodynamics, electron spin resonance spectroscopy and particles detection for high-energy physics and astrophysics. In this work, we investigate the influence of the film thickness on the temperature response of microfabricated Nb 50 Ti 50 superconducting resonators. S-shaped split ring resonators (S-SRRs), approximately 20 nm to 150 nm thick, are designed to be electromagnetically coupled with standard Cu coplanar waveguides (CPWs) and their microwave properties are characterised at temperatures below 10 K . The combined contributions of the kinetic inductance L K ( T ) increase and the decreasing loaded quality factor Q L , for thinner films, induce an optimum condition on the temperature sensitivity and resolution of the resonators. A noise equivalent temperature as low as ( 0.53 ± 0.09 ) μ K Hz − 1 / 2 , at 1 Hz , is reported for 100 nm thick resonators at 4.2 K . We also asses the possibility of implementing a multiplexed frequency readout, allowing for the simultaneous temperature tracking of several sensors along a single CPW. Such results demonstrate the possibility to perform a distributed cryogenic temperature monitoring, with a sub- μ K resolution. Thus, the application of superconducting S-SRRs, eventually benefiting from an even higher