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Noise and loss in superconducting resonators

Werner Karl-Gustav Daalman

Published Jan 1, 2014• 1 citation
OpenAlex

Abstract

Sub-mm astronomy in space calls for an array of photon noise limited detectors, both for imaging and broadband spectroscopy. Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs), superconducting resonance circuits, are a suitable candidate for this purpose due to its multiplexing potential, but in literature excess noise in phase readout is encountered and attributed to so-called two-level systems (TLSs). Reduction in TLS induced noise and loss will provide greater flexibility in design and a route towards background limited detector performance. In this thesis, TLSs from surface and bulk sources are modelled, so that their behaviour can be predicted through numerical computations of the field distributions inside the resonators. These calculations not only provide a guide for sensible chip designs, but allow for interpretation of experimental data and determination of dominant TLS sources. It is found that for Al CPW resonators on Si or SiN, the noise is surface dominated but with a non-negligible bulk contribution, while for microstrips on a SiN membrane, the noise is bulk dominated. As the loss in microstrips for narrow microstrips is dominated by the substrate-air interface, the dominant TLS loss and noise sources do not necessarily coincide and should be treated independently. This makes it impossible to determine the dominant CPW surface noise contribution. Additionally, microstrips and CPWs on the same dielectric perform similarly, while Si is better than SiN, both in terms of loss and noise, due to a combination of SiN interface and bulk effects. Finally, material dependent loss and noise parameters have been determined and the importance of thorough Si surface cleaning has been established, yielding the best Al CPW noise ever encountered. For sub-mm astronomy in space, the logical path to improvement would be the use of thorough cleaned Si as a dielectric, overetching and the use of LEKIDS and hybrid resonators, where microstrips are still viable for use. Importantly, having located the important TLS locations for various cases, tackling these problems areas further could provide the step towards background limited performance in space.

Related papers

Performance of a KID: On the influence of the resonator geometry on the noise and Q-factor of a kinetic inductance detector

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Space-based astronomy is in need of a photon-noise limited detector with multiplexing opportunities. The kinetic inductance detector (KID) is capable of both properties. An incoming photon breaks Cooper pairs in the superconducting layer of the KID, which leads to a change in inductance, which can be detected with phase- and amplitude read-out. Photon noise, generation-recombination noise are inevitable noise sources, but two-level system noise can be minimized by adjusting the resonator and its geometry. To gain insight in the noise and loss sources this thesis investigates the difference between microstrip and co-planar waveguide resonators; and the difference between a silicon substrate and a silicon-on-insulator substrate. Numerical analysis shows that: noise in all types of resonators are dielectric bulk dominated; an Al superconducting layer shows has different losses in terms of Q-factor, compared to a NbTiN superconducting layer, but quantitatively the same internal Q-factor in the order of 105 is achieved; an Al superconducting layer in a microstrip has 5dBc/Hz and 2dBc/Hz higher noise in the metal-air and metal-edge interfaces, respectively, compared to a NbTiN superconducting layer; an Al on Si CPW and microstrip have the same Q-factor performance; an Al on Si CPW has a 2-8dBc/Hz more noise at all interfaces compared to an Al on Si microstrip; a buried oxide layer has no influence on the loss in terms of the Q-factor for 100nm Al on Si substrate CPWs; and that the noise of an Al on SOI CPW is bulk dominated, and the dielectric bulk contributes 10dBc/Hz more to the noise, compared to an Al on Si CPW. Experimental analysis shows that a gapwidth of wgap ? 10?m for Al on SOI CPWs shows no response, due to high two-level system noise. Low Q-factors in the order of 104 have been measured for Al on SOI CPWs, which is low compared to literature. A high set-up noise of -85dBc/Hz and divergent relationships with the internal power indicate that TLS-noise does not dominate the measurements, and set-up negatively influences the measurements. In conclusion, the resonator geometry is an important factor for the performance of a KID in terms of noise and Q-factors. A buried oxide layer has no consequence for the Q-factor, and negatively affects the noise of a CPW.

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© 2019 American Physical Society. Superconducting quantum-computing architectures comprise resonators and qubits that experience energy loss due to two-level systems (TLSs) in bulk and interfacial dielectrics. An understanding of these losses is critical to improving performance in superconducting circuits. In this work, we present a method for quantifying the TLS losses of different bulk and interfacial dielectrics present in superconducting coplanar-waveguide (CPW) resonators. By combining statistical characterization of sets of specifically designed CPW resonators on isotropically etched silicon substrates with detailed electromagnetic modeling, we determine the separate loss contributions from individual material interfaces and bulk dielectrics. This technique for analyzing interfacial TLS losses can be used to guide targeted improvements to qubits, resonators, and their superconducting fabrication processes.

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Over the past two decades, microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) have gained exceptional importance in millimeter and sub-millimeter astronomy. MKIDs consist of thin strip resonators capable of detecting changes in the surface impedance of superconductor strips, which result from variations in resonance circuit properties. The principal noise in MKIDs comprises excess frequency noise and two-level system noise. In this paper, we propose a technique to mitigate the effect of two-level system (TLS) noise in MKIDs using a parallel plate capacitor with three layers of high ε dielectrics. To achieve this, we employ three layers of Al2O3, HfO2, and TiO2 with equal thickness between the capacitor plates. The experimental results demonstrate a nearly 30% reduction in TLS power spectral density.

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Ultra High Kinetic Inductance Detectors

Stefan Verheul

Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are extremely sensitive radiation detectors based on superconducting resonators that can be combined in large arrays on a single readout line within a limited frequency bandwidth. This makes MKIDs ideal detectors for the ultimate far-infrared observatory: a future space-based actively cooled telescope with its performance solely limited by the low universe background radiation. However, to reach these detector requirements, state-of-the-art MKIDs still need a order of magnitude improvement in device sensitivity. In this work, the MKID sensitivity is improved by reducing the aluminium volume that absorbs pair-breaking radiation into quasiparticle excitations, while making sure all radiation is still absorbed. Furthermore, a key requirement is sufficient reduction of excess noise as to keep the device intrinsically limited by thermally driven random fluctuations in the number of quasiparticles in absence of radiation, or Generation-Recombination (G-R) noise. To this end, a model is developed that describes the noise contributions as function of device geometry, readout power, material properties and radiation power. Subsequently, a realistic MKID design is presented and tested that reduces excess noise and maximises the sensitivity, expressed as Noise Equivalent Power (NEP). At high temperatures, good overall agreement is found between the measured noise spectra and the model. At low temperature T = 120 mK, the measurement results give an optical NEP similar to current state-of-the-art MKIDs. The NEP is not as low as expected due to short quasiparticle lifetimes, an unexpected decrease in the G-R noise level and a very high excess noise attributed to Two-Level Systems (TLS) noise that starts to dominate the already low G-R noise spectrum at low temperatures. Possibly, the quick quasiparticle lifetime saturation and noise level drop are caused by a strong readout power effect, as the readout power is known to create excess quasiparticles and to cause a strongly non-thermal electron energy distribution in the aluminium strip of the MKID. However, the exact microscopic details of these effects are unknown and not studied in this project. Based on the current chip design, a straightforward way to improve device performance and study the readout power effect in more detail is a reduction of the high TLS noise levels, which is possibly fabrication related. This would allow an unobstructed view of the G-R noise spectrum at low temperatures, thereby allowing both a study of the readout power effect on the quasiparticle system, and ultimately achieving the improvement in NEP needed reach the detector requirements for the ultimate space-based far-infrared observatory.

•Jan 1, 2019•0 citations
Sub-mm astronomy in space calls for an array of photon noise limited detectors, both for imaging and broadband spectroscopy. Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs), superconducting resonance circuits, are a suitable candidate for this purpose due to its multiplexing potential, but in literature excess noise in phase readout is encountered and attributed to so-called two-level systems (TLSs). Reduction in TLS induced noise and loss will provide greater flexibility in design and a route towards background limited detector performance. In this thesis, TLSs from surface and bulk sources are modelled, so that their behaviour can be predicted through numerical computations of the field distributions inside the resonators. These calculations not only provide a guide for sensible chip designs, but allow for interpretation of experimental data and determination of dominant TLS sources. It is found that for Al CPW resonators on Si or SiN, the noise is surface dominated but with a non-negligible bulk contribution, while for microstrips on a SiN membrane, the noise is bulk dominated. As the loss in microstrips for narrow microstrips is dominated by the substrate-air interface, the dominant TLS loss and noise sources do not necessarily coincide and should be treated independently. This makes it impossible to determine the dominant CPW surface noise contribution. Additionally, microstrips and CPWs on the same dielectric perform similarly, while Si is better than SiN, both in terms of loss and noise, due to a combination of SiN interface and bulk effects. Finally, material dependent loss and noise parameters have been determined and the importance of thorough Si surface cleaning has been established, yielding the best Al CPW noise ever encountered. For sub-mm astronomy in space, the logical path to improvement would be the use of thorough cleaned Si as a dielectric, overetching and the use of LEKIDS and hybrid resonators, where microstrips are still viable for use. Importantly, having located the important TLS locations for various cases, tackling these problems areas further could provide the step towards background limited performance in space.
Space-based astronomy is in need of a photon-noise limited detector with multiplexing opportunities. The kinetic inductance detector (KID) is capable of both properties. An incoming photon breaks Cooper pairs in the superconducting layer of the KID, which leads to a change in inductance, which can be detected with phase- and amplitude read-out. Photon noise, generation-recombination noise are inevitable noise sources, but two-level system noise can be minimized by adjusting the resonator and its geometry. To gain insight in the noise and loss sources this thesis investigates the difference between microstrip and co-planar waveguide resonators; and the difference between a silicon substrate and a silicon-on-insulator substrate. Numerical analysis shows that: noise in all types of resonators are dielectric bulk dominated; an Al superconducting layer shows has different losses in terms of Q-factor, compared to a NbTiN superconducting layer, but quantitatively the same internal Q-factor in the order of 105 is achieved; an Al superconducting layer in a microstrip has 5dBc/Hz and 2dBc/Hz higher noise in the metal-air and metal-edge interfaces, respectively, compared to a NbTiN superconducting layer; an Al on Si CPW and microstrip have the same Q-factor performance; an Al on Si CPW has a 2-8dBc/Hz more noise at all interfaces compared to an Al on Si microstrip; a buried oxide layer has no influence on the loss in terms of the Q-factor for 100nm Al on Si substrate CPWs; and that the noise of an Al on SOI CPW is bulk dominated, and the dielectric bulk contributes 10dBc/Hz more to the noise, compared to an Al on Si CPW. Experimental analysis shows that a gapwidth of wgap ? 10?m for Al on SOI CPWs shows no response, due to high two-level system noise. Low Q-factors in the order of 104 have been measured for Al on SOI CPWs, which is low compared to literature. A high set-up noise of -85dBc/Hz and divergent relationships with the internal power indicate that TLS-noise does not dominate the measurements, and set-up negatively influences the measurements. In conclusion, the resonator geometry is an important factor for the performance of a KID in terms of noise and Q-factors. A buried oxide layer has no consequence for the Q-factor, and negatively affects the noise of a CPW.
© 2019 American Physical Society. Superconducting quantum-computing architectures comprise resonators and qubits that experience energy loss due to two-level systems (TLSs) in bulk and interfacial dielectrics. An understanding of these losses is critical to improving performance in superconducting circuits. In this work, we present a method for quantifying the TLS losses of different bulk and interfacial dielectrics present in superconducting coplanar-waveguide (CPW) resonators. By combining statistical characterization of sets of specifically designed CPW resonators on isotropically etched silicon substrates with detailed electromagnetic modeling, we determine the separate loss contributions from individual material interfaces and bulk dielectrics. This technique for analyzing interfacial TLS losses can be used to guide targeted improvements to qubits, resonators, and their superconducting fabrication processes.
Noise performance is one of the most crucial aspects of any detector. Superconducting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) have an “excess” frequency noise that shows up as a small time dependent jitter of the resonance frequency characterized by the frequency noise power spectrum measured in units of Hz2/Hz. Recent studies have shown that this noise almost certainly originates from a surface layer of two‐level system (TLS) defects on the metallization or substrate. Fluctuation of these TLSs introduces noise in the resonator due to coupling of the TLS electric dipole moments to the resonator’s electric field. Motivated by a semi‐empirical quantitative theory of this noise mechanism, we have designed and tested new resonator geometries in which the high‐field “capacitive” portion of the CPW resonator is replaced by an interdigitated capacitor (IDC) structure with 10–20 μm electrode spacing, as compared to the 2 μm spacing used for our more conventional CPW resonators. Measurements show that this new IDC design has dramatically lower TLS noise, currently by about a factor of ∼29 in terms of the frequency noise power spectrum, corresponding to an improvement of about a factor of 29 in NEP. These new devices are replacing the CPW resonators in our next design iteration in progress for MKIDCam. Opportunities and prospects for future reduction of the TLS noise will be discussed.
Over the past two decades, microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) have gained exceptional importance in millimeter and sub-millimeter astronomy. MKIDs consist of thin strip resonators capable of detecting changes in the surface impedance of superconductor strips, which result from variations in resonance circuit properties. The principal noise in MKIDs comprises excess frequency noise and two-level system noise. In this paper, we propose a technique to mitigate the effect of two-level system (TLS) noise in MKIDs using a parallel plate capacitor with three layers of high ε dielectrics. To achieve this, we employ three layers of Al2O3, HfO2, and TiO2 with equal thickness between the capacitor plates. The experimental results demonstrate a nearly 30% reduction in TLS power spectral density.
Parallel-plate capacitors (PPC) significantly reduce the size of superconducting microwave resonators, reducing the pixel pitch for arrays of single-photon energy-resolving kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs). The frequency noise of KIDs is typically limited by tunneling two-level systems (TLS), which originate from lattice defects in the dielectric materials required for PPCs. How the frequency noise level depends on the PPC's dimensions has not been experimentally addressed. We measure the frequency noise of 56 resonators with aaa-SiC\mathrm{Si}\mathrm{C}SiC:H\mathrm{H}H PPCs, which cover a factor of 44 in PPC area and a factor of 4 in dielectric thickness. To support the noise analysis, we measure the resonators' TLS-induced power-dependent intrinsic loss and temperature-dependent resonance frequency shift. From the TLS models, we expect a geometry-independent microwave loss and resonance frequency shift, which is set by the TLS properties of the dielectric. However, we observe a thickness-dependent microwave loss and resonance frequency shift; this is explained by surface layers that limit the performance of PPC-based resonators. For a uniform dielectric, the frequency noise level should scale directly inversely with the PPC area and thickness. We observe that an increase in PPC size reduces the frequency noise, but the exact scaling is, in some cases, weaker than expected. Finally, we derive engineering guidelines for the design of KIDs based on PPC-based resonators.
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are extremely sensitive radiation detectors based on superconducting resonators that can be combined in large arrays on a single readout line within a limited frequency bandwidth. This makes MKIDs ideal detectors for the ultimate far-infrared observatory: a future space-based actively cooled telescope with its performance solely limited by the low universe background radiation. However, to reach these detector requirements, state-of-the-art MKIDs still need a order of magnitude improvement in device sensitivity. In this work, the MKID sensitivity is improved by reducing the aluminium volume that absorbs pair-breaking radiation into quasiparticle excitations, while making sure all radiation is still absorbed. Furthermore, a key requirement is sufficient reduction of excess noise as to keep the device intrinsically limited by thermally driven random fluctuations in the number of quasiparticles in absence of radiation, or Generation-Recombination (G-R) noise. To this end, a model is developed that describes the noise contributions as function of device geometry, readout power, material properties and radiation power. Subsequently, a realistic MKID design is presented and tested that reduces excess noise and maximises the sensitivity, expressed as Noise Equivalent Power (NEP). At high temperatures, good overall agreement is found between the measured noise spectra and the model. At low temperature T = 120 mK, the measurement results give an optical NEP similar to current state-of-the-art MKIDs. The NEP is not as low as expected due to short quasiparticle lifetimes, an unexpected decrease in the G-R noise level and a very high excess noise attributed to Two-Level Systems (TLS) noise that starts to dominate the already low G-R noise spectrum at low temperatures. Possibly, the quick quasiparticle lifetime saturation and noise level drop are caused by a strong readout power effect, as the readout power is known to create excess quasiparticles and to cause a strongly non-thermal electron energy distribution in the aluminium strip of the MKID. However, the exact microscopic details of these effects are unknown and not studied in this project. Based on the current chip design, a straightforward way to improve device performance and study the readout power effect in more detail is a reduction of the high TLS noise levels, which is possibly fabrication related. This would allow an unobstructed view of the G-R noise spectrum at low temperatures, thereby allowing both a study of the readout power effect on the quasiparticle system, and ultimately achieving the improvement in NEP needed reach the detector requirements for the ultimate space-based far-infrared observatory.