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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Pulsation of InGaAs Photodiodes in Liquid Helium for Driving Josephson Arrays in AC Voltage Realization

Bjørnar Karlsen, Oliver Kieler, Ralf Behr, Thai Anh Tuan Nguyen, Helge Malmbekk, Muhammad Nadeem Akram, Per Alfred Øhlckers

Published Apr 22, 2019• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A commercially available InGaAs p-i-n photodiode chip has been custom packaged and high-speed operated in liquid helium. The photodiode was driven by light pulses using a dc-biased 1310-nm laser, a Mach-Zehnder modulator, and a return-to-zero pulse pattern generator up to 15 GHz clock frequencies, which produced pulse widths down to 77 ps and maximum peak current heights above 10 mA. With the prospect of using this photodiode assembly to operate pulse-driven Josephson junction arrays for ac voltage realization, pulsation modes with constant pulse width and varying pulse density were applied to the diode, which resulted in consistent pulse shapes for bit rates as high as 7.5 Gb/s. This could yield realizable peak voltages as high as 15.525 μV per Josephson junction. Time-lapse pulse measurements were performed over the span of 90 min, which demonstrated good waveform stability. Using the measured current waveforms, the behavior of a typical Josephson junction was simulated according to the Stewart-McCumber model, which resulted in an operational margin of 2 mA for the first Shapiro step.

DOI
10.1109/tasc.2019.2901573

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A commercially available InGaAs p-i-n photodiode chip has been custom packaged and high-speed operated in liquid helium. The photodiode was driven by light pulses using a dc-biased 1310-nm laser, a Mach-Zehnder modulator, and a return-to-zero pulse pattern generator up to 15 GHz clock frequencies, which produced pulse widths down to 77 ps and maximum peak current heights above 10 mA. With the prospect of using this photodiode assembly to operate pulse-driven Josephson junction arrays for ac voltage realization, pulsation modes with constant pulse width and varying pulse density were applied to the diode, which resulted in consistent pulse shapes for bit rates as high as 7.5 Gb/s. This could yield realizable peak voltages as high as 15.525 μV per Josephson junction. Time-lapse pulse measurements were performed over the span of 90 min, which demonstrated good waveform stability. Using the measured current waveforms, the behavior of a typical Josephson junction was simulated according to the Stewart-McCumber model, which resulted in an operational margin of 2 mA for the first Shapiro step.
Abstract We have successfully operated two Josephson junction arrays in parallel with photonically generated current pulses to achieve higher output voltages with our optical pulse drive setup. Passive optical power splitters divide each optical channel at room temperature in order to illuminate multiple cryogenic photodiodes at 4 K , located near the arrays. The balanced photodiode configurations bias the Josephson junctions with ternary current pulses to generate a 1 kHz bipolar sinusoidal voltage with a nominal root mean square amplitude of 85 mV . We determined a spurious free dynamic range and total harmonic distortion of 110.6 dBc and − 105.0 dB from the spectrum of the synthesized signal. Applying an additional dither current to each array individually yielded a quantum locking range of 0.4 mA and 0.6 mA . Furthermore, the quantum locked operation was confirmed to remain stable when the optical output power of the laser diodes and the DC bias of the Mach–Zehnder modulators were varied. A stability measurement of the output amplitude over more than half an hour confirmed sufficiently wide operating margins, further demonstrating a reliable optical Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer setup suitable for generating quantum-based waveform with high spectral purity traceable to fundamental constants. To our knowledge, this is the highest amplitude generated with optically driven Josephson junctions so far and the first successful proof of principle for parallelizing the optical pulse drive to achieve higher output voltages in the future.
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.
We report proof-of-concept experiments on an optically driven Josephson voltage standard based on a mode-locked laser (MLL), a time-division multiplexer, and a cryogenic ultrafast photodiode driving an overdamped Josephson junction array (JJA). Our optical pulse pattern generator (PPG) concept builds on the capability of MLLs to produce trains of picosecond-wide optical pulses with little amplitude and temporal spread. Our present setup enables multiplication of the original 2.3 GHz pulse repetition frequency by a factor of 8. A commercial photodiode converts the optical pulses into about 25 ps wide electrical pulses in liquid helium several cm from the JJA. Using a custom-made MLL, we can drive a JJA with a low critical current of 360 μA at multiple Shapiro steps. We have performed experiments with pulse pairs whose time interval can be set freely without distorting the shapes of individual pulses. Experimental results are in qualitative agreement with theoretical simulations, and they demonstrate, e.g., crossover in the Shapiro step pattern when the time interval between the pulses is approximately equal to the inverse of the characteristic frequency of the JJA. However, there are quantitative discrepancies, which motivate an improved integration of photodiodes and JJAs to improve both the understanding and fidelity of Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizers. Considering future quantum technologies in a wider perspective, our optical approach is a potential enabler for fast and energy-efficient pulse drive without an expensive high-bandwidth electrical PPG and without high-bandwidth electrical cables that yield too high thermal conductance between cryogenic and room temperatures.
We report proof-of-concept experiments on an optically driven Josephson voltage standard based on a mode-locked laser (MLL), a time-division multiplexer, and a cryogenic ultrafast photodiode driving an overdamped Josephson junction array (JJA). Our optical pulse pattern generator (PPG) concept builds on the capability of MLLs to produce trains of picosecond-wide optical pulses with little amplitude and temporal spread. Our present setup enables multiplication of the original 2.3 GHz pulse repetition frequency by a factor of 8. A commercial photodiode converts the optical pulses into about 25 ps wide electrical pulses in liquid helium several cm from the JJA. Using a custom-made MLL, we can drive a JJA with a low critical current of 360 μA at multiple Shapiro steps. We have performed experiments with pulse pairs whose time interval can be set freely without distorting the shapes of individual pulses. Experimental results are in qualitative agreement with theoretical simulations, and they demonstrate, e.g., crossover in the Shapiro step pattern when the time interval between the pulses is approximately equal to the inverse of the characteristic frequency of the JJA. However, there are quantitative discrepancies, which motivate an improved integration of photodiodes and JJAs to improve both the understanding and fidelity of Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizers. Considering future quantum technologies in a wider perspective, our optical approach is a potential enabler for fast and energy-efficient pulse drive without an expensive high-bandwidth electrical PPG and without high-bandwidth electrical cables that yield too high thermal conductance between cryogenic and room temperatures.
An array of Josephson junctions (JJs) was driven with photonically generated current pulses to synthesize a high-fidelity 1 kHz bipolar voltage waveform with a quantum-based amplitude that can be directly related to fundamental constants. A photodiode capable of producing high average photocurrent was used to generate large-amplitude current pulses that were ac-coupled to a JJ array. The resulting bipolar current pulses have enabled the first demonstration of quantum-based bipolar waveform synthesis with an optical drive. We measured the quantum locking range with respect to several operating parameters, including 1.2 mA with respect to a dc bias current applied to the array, confirming the robust synthesis of bipolar waveforms.
We have combined a cryogenic BiCMOS integrated circuit with a superconducting Josephson junction array. The BiCMOS circuit serves as an on-chip pulse generator delivering return-to-zero pulses with pulse frequencies of up to 15 GHz. With this microwave drive, we observe wide and flat Shapiro steps in the voltage-versus-current characteristics of the Josephson junction array. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first integration of a Josephson junction array with a cryogenic BiCMOS chip. Our results pave the way to a hybrid and fully integrated Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer with possible applications in quantum electronics and quantum voltage metrology.