Fabrication and characterization of ultrafast superconducting optoelectronic devices

Jeffrey M. Shainline, Sonia Mary Buckley, Adam N. McCaughan +3 more

Behnood G. Ghamsari, A. Hamed Majedi

This paper studies the prospects of guided-wave superconducting optoelectronic devices as a platform for ultra-fast and ultra-sensitive optoelectronics. We will introduce waveguide and traveling-wave devices as two main classes of guided-wave optoelectronic devices and highlight the advantages and the new possibilities they offer. The key challenges in regard to the design and fabrication of these devices are addressed and promising directions for future progress are introduced.

Arthur L. Robinson

Roman Sobolewski

Ultrafast phenomena, optoelectronics, and superconductivity are acknowledged fields of technological importance and a very large amount of research has been performed in these areas in recent years. In modern, highly-advanced digital electronic circuits, the primary function of high-performance, high-speed signal processing is given to superconducting single-flux-quantum (SFQ) logical devices, based on resistively-shunted Josephson tunnel junctions. The development of this branch of digital electronics requires ultrafast, and ultra sensitive optical-to-electrical transducers for fiber optic interconnects, which must be able to transform to the electrical domain the input information coded in the form of a train of ultrafast optical pulses and, subsequently, feed it into the SFQ processor.

Marc Currie

Haig A. Atikian

The increasing demand for high performance communications systems and signal processing is constantly driving researchers to develop novel devices in both the microwave and optical domains. The possibility of using high temperature superconductors (HTS) as a platform for ultra-fast, ultra-high sensitive optoelectronic and microwave photonic devices has been explored. \nThis report introduces a cryogenic microwave photonic probe station, designed and built to characterize HTS microwave photonic devices. A methodology is presented to design coplanar waveguide transmission lines using HTS. The transmission line is then modified to include a meander line structure to serve the optoelectronic function. The device is characterized in several different operating domains, as an optically tunable microwave resonator, an optically tunable delay line, and finally as a photodetector. \nA planar HTS weak leak structure is investigated with the measurements of the I-V characteristics. Moreover, this device is proposed as the next generation platform to fabricate ultra-fast and ultra-high sensitive photodetectors using HTS.