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IEEE International Superconductive Electronics Conference (ISEC)

Magnetic Josephson Junctions on Nb Four-layer Structure for Half Flux Quantum Circuits

Daiki Hasegawa, Yuto Takeshita, Kyosuke Sano, Masamitsu Tanaka, Akira Fujimaki, Taro Yamashita

Published Jul 1, 2019• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We successfully fabricated magnetic Josephson junctions integrated on a Nb four-layer superconducting structure for demonstrating half flux quantum (HFQ) circuits. In the developed process, we adopted a 0-0-π SQUID instead of the 0-π SQUID as the basic element of the HFQ circuits. In this work, we characterized the Nb/PdNi/Nb magnetic Josephson junctions on the Nb four-layer structures fabricated by two different processes. We measured the I-V characteristics of junctions in liquid helium at 4.2 K. The results showed that the fabricated junctions had properties comparable to conventional ones on Si wafers.

DOI
10.1109/isec46533.2019.8990908

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We successfully fabricated magnetic Josephson junctions integrated on a Nb four-layer superconducting structure for demonstrating half flux quantum (HFQ) circuits. In the developed process, we adopted a 0-0-π SQUID instead of the 0-π SQUID as the basic element of the HFQ circuits. In this work, we characterized the Nb/PdNi/Nb magnetic Josephson junctions on the Nb four-layer structures fabricated by two different processes. We measured the I-V characteristics of junctions in liquid helium at 4.2 K. The results showed that the fabricated junctions had properties comparable to conventional ones on Si wafers.
We report a hybrid fabrication process for superconductor large-scale integrated circuits (ICs) with ferromagnetic π-shifted Josephson junctions (π junctions) and conventional 0 junctions. π junctions have a Nb/PdNi/Nb sandwich structure and are formed on the reliable Nb four-layer structure used for Nb/AlOx/Nb 0-junction-based ICs. The additional process for making π junctions causes little damage to the 0 junctions. The π phase shift for the superconducting macroscopic wave function is confirmed by forming 0-0-π SQUIDs that have two 0 junctions and one π junction in a superconducting loop. The π junction serves as the π phase shifter because the critical currents of the π junctions are much larger than those of the 0 junctions. The modulation patterns of the 0-0-π SQUIDs show a clear shift by the magnetic field corresponding to the half flux quantum (HFQ). The critical currents of the 0-0-π SQUIDs without fields, which are referred to as the nominal critical currents, are reduced depending on the product of the loop inductance and the critical current of the 0 junction. The nominal critical current reaches 1/5 of the critical current of the single 0 junction. The small values of the nominal critical currents contribute to the reduction of the power consumption in the HFQ circuit directly.
Half-flux-quantum (HFQ) logic is a superconductor logic family comprising conventional Josephson junctions (0-JJs) and π Josephson junctions (π-JJs). The energy scale of HFQ logic can be flexibly reduced by phase shifts owing to π-JJs; thus, HFQ circuits are a promising building block for qubit interface circuits. In this study, we demonstrate an NbN-based HFQ circuit element compatible with NbN-based superconducting qubits for all-NbN monolithic integration of qubits and HFQ circuits. The use of NbN is beneficial for both qubits and HFQ circuits owing to its high-quality junctions and high kinetic inductance. First, we developed a prototype of an NbN-based 0-JJ/π-JJ hybrid fabrication process for designing HFQ circuits. We evaluated 0-JJs and π-JJs fabricated through the hybrid process, which demonstrated that the 0-JJs had a small deviation with regard to critical current density and the π-JJs had a sufficiently high critical current density to work as π phase shifters. Furthermore, we fabricated an HFQ superconducting quantum interference device, which is one of the most fundamental elements in HFQ circuits, and observed clear HFQ-period modulation in the magnetic flux dependence of the maximum current at 4.2 K.
Abstract Half-flux-quantum (HFQ) circuits are based on 0–π superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) and is one of the energy-efficient superconductor digital circuits. The bit energy is determined by the critical current I cn of 0–π SQUID, which can be easily tuned with the loop inductance and junction critical current. In this work, an alternative π–π–π SQUID is adopted to demonstrate HFQ circuits to simplify the fabrication process and enhance circuit energy efficiency. The properties of superconductor/ferromagnet/insulator/superconductor Josephson junctions (π-JJs) are measured with temperature dependence from 4.2 K down to 10 mK. HFQ toggle flip-flops (TFFs) are successfully demonstrated at frequencies of up to 6.7 GHz and 44.5 GHz at temperatures of 4.2 K and 10 mK, respectively. Comparing the HFQ TFF with its rapid single-flux quantum counterpart under the same fabrication process, it is anticipated that the HFQ TFF will exhibit approximately 70% reduction in both static and dynamic energy dissipation. This research establishes the foundation for developing cryogenic interface control and readout circuits for large-scale quantum computing in the future.
We report on low-power operation of the half-flux-quantum (HFQ) shift-register circuit. We used a superconducting quantum interference device composed of two conventional switching junctions (0-junctions) and one π-shifted non-switching magnetic Josephson junction (π-junction) as a switching element, called 0-0-π SQUID. Because the π-shift assists switching by inducing a spontaneous current, the 0-0-π SQUID shows a nominal small critical current value and is easily switched by a weak driving force. This feature allows us to significantly reduce static and dynamic power consumption at junctions and bias-feeding resistors. We carefully designed the HFQ circuit elements using a circuit parameter optimization tool and introducing additional non-switching 0-0-π SQUIDs to compensate for superconductor phase shifts. We fabricated the test circuit of the 4-bit shift-register by forming Nb/PdNi/Nb π-junctions on the Nb four-layer, 10-kA/cm2 device. We successfully obtained correct operation with measured power consumption of 0.12-0.18 μW/bit, which was about 1/10 of the conventional single-flux-quantum shift-register designed with the 0-junctions of the same critical currents and the standard bias voltage.
We report optimization of half-flux-quantum (HFQ) circuits composed of SQUIDs containing conventional Josephson junctions and π-shift magnetic Josephson junctions. The SQUID can act as a Josephson junction with an extremely small critical current and be easily switched by a weak driving force with the assistance of the circulating current that is induced due to the π-shift and quantization conditions. It leads to a drastic reduction of both static and dynamic power consumption. However, the parameter margins of the HFQ circuits obtained so far is narrow compared with conventional single-flux-quantum circuits. Since HFQ circuits use many circuit elements and require the two junctions in the SQUID to switch alternately and symmetrically, circuit parameter optimization is much more difficult. In this study, we developed an optimization tool for HFQ circuits, including operation judgment and margin calculation. We improved the critical margin of the HFQ Josephson transmission line to 39%. We also optimized the HFQ splitter, confluence buffer, and D flip-flop. We discuss design guidelines for HFQ circuits based on our systematic exploration of the optimized circuit parameter sets. We suggest that the optimized loop inductances are around 0.5 and 1.5 of Φ0/2 for data transmission and storage, respectively.
Abstract We have developed half-flux-quantum (HFQ) circuits using all-π-junctions formed from an NbN/AlN/PdNi/NbN (SIFS) structure. The circuits were fabricated using a novel process that incorporated a ground plane on top of the chip, enabling the epitaxial growth of NbN-based junctions from the substrate. The π-state of the junctions was demonstrated through a HFQ shift. Notably, these π-junctions exhibited self-overdamped current-voltage characteristics, enabling them to function as switching components without the need for shunt resistors. The elimination of shunt resistors and the high sheet inductance of NbN are expected to enhance the density of HFQ circuits. To evaluate the performance and power consumption of the all-π-junctions HFQ circuits, we designed and fabricated an HFQ toggle flip-flop (HFQ-TFF) circuit utilizing π-π-π SQUIDs as the fundamental components. Our findings reveal that the NbN-based HFQ-TFF circuit correctly operates as a frequency divider while consuming only around 30% of the power compared to single-flux-quantum TFF (SFQ-TFF) circuits. These results suggest that the HFQ circuit using SIFS-π-junctions has promising potential for integrated circuits requiring low-power consumption at cryogenic temperatures, such as qubit control.