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IEE Journal on SolidState and Electron Devices

Unusually thin Dayem bridges as Q-band mixers

P.K.D. Froome, Aaron Beck

Published Jan 1, 1977• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Josephson junctions using Dayem bridges made from unusually thin films have been operated as mixers. The thickness of the film was made small to increase the r.f. impedance of the device and so to improve r.f. matching, but such thin films often fail to act as Josephson junctions because of surface roughness. In the device reported here, attempts were made to obtain specular reflection of the electron wave functions from the surface. Our devices behaved as good Josephson junctions and gave an internal mixing efficiency of 4.5% at 32 GHz.

DOI
10.1049/ij-ssed.1977.0015

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Josephson junctions using Dayem bridges made from unusually thin films have been operated as mixers. The thickness of the film was made small to increase the r.f. impedance of the device and so to improve r.f. matching, but such thin films often fail to act as Josephson junctions because of surface roughness. In the device reported here, attempts were made to obtain specular reflection of the electron wave functions from the surface. Our devices behaved as good Josephson junctions and gave an internal mixing efficiency of 4.5% at 32 GHz.
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We report X-band microwave measurements on superconducting thin film micro-bridges (Dayem bridges), mounted in a half wavelength cavity with an adjustable coupling to match the bridge properly. Power emission from the bridge of 10-13W in a 10 MHz bandwidth was measured. Current noise fluctuations caused a total voltage line width corresponding to 150-200 MHz, when the voltage across the bridge was swept through the resonance; from this we estimate a total power emission of 1-2·10-12W into this frequency interval. Transmission measurements and comparison with analogue computer calculations have revealed that an equivalent diagram consisting of an inductance in series with the resistively shunted Josephson junction model can account for the experimental results. A conclusion from these measurements is that there is a possibility for amplification in the device. Moreover, the nonlinearity of the device was used in a mixing experiment with the Josephson oscillation as local oscillator.
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Current-voltage characteristics and microwave mixing properties of step-edge microbridge Josephson junctions (SEJJs) made of YBaCuO thin films were systematically investigated. The step-edge was formed on the surface of a MgO(100) substrate employing the common photolithograph and wet-etching techniques. YBaCuO thin film was deposited by the off-axis sputtering method, and the microbridge junctions were fabricated so as to cross the step-edge. The SEJJs showed typical DC and AC characteristics which were explained by the resistively shunted junction (RSJ) model. Mixing experiments were carried out in the K-band microwave region. An intermediate frequency (IF) output with the frequency range of 20 MHz∼2.0 GHz was successfully obtained.