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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Linewidth Measurements of a Large Niobium Josephson Junction Array

Mikhail A. Galin, Nickolay V. Kinev, M. Yu. Levichev, A. I. El’kina, Alexander V. Antonov, Andrey V. Khudchenko, Gregory Nazarov, Vladislav V. Kurin, V. P. Koshelets

Published Nov 28, 2023• 3 citations

Abstract

We performed the spectral measurements of a niobium based Josephson junction array in order to estimate the linewidth of Josephson emission. The array is formed by 9996 serially connected Nb/NbSi/Nb Josephson junctions occupying the area of 5×7 mm2on a silicon substrate and divided into 7 distinct subarrays. The array was immersed in a liquid helium dewar from where the emission was brought to open space via an oversize waveguide. Firstly, the measurements on a Fourier-transform spectrometer were carried out in a wide frequency range 139–343 GHz at almost all self-induced steps of current-voltage curve. As in our previous work, the observed linewidth of Josephson emission corresponded to the resolution of the spectrometer. Then, we carried out more precise and sensitive measurements using the 211–275 GHz heterodyne receiver based on a Nb/AlOx/Nb mixer with a spectral resolution better than 0.1 MHz. Dependencies of the linewidth on the step number and on the number of connected subarrays are studied. The peaks corresponding to the 2ndharmonic of the Josephson generation are also observed in the spectra. The linewidth of the main harmonic down to 1.5 MHz was observed in these measurements.

DOI: 10.1109/tasc.2023.3337197

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We performed spectral measurements of a large niobium Josephson junctions array. The array consists of 9996 serially connected Nb/NbSi/Nb junctions placed on a 1×1 cm silicon substrate. The spectrum was analyzed by a heterodyne superconducting receiver based on a high-TcJosephson mixer. It was discovered that the linewidth of Josephson radiation is strongly influenced by configuration and type of a measurement system. We obtain the linewidth down to 0.2 MHz when connecting the array to an autonomous power source and minimizing technical noise. We also observed the shift of the spectral frequency from the Josephson one that can be explained by peculiarities of synchronization of such large multi-oscillator systems.

We report heterodyne measurements of Josephson microwave radiation emitted by a parallel array of small superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) junctions at submillimeter-wave frequencies. The array consists of five Nb/Al–AlOx/Nb junctions nonevenly distributed in a niobium superconducting stripline, and is optimized for rf coupling in the 450–640 GHz range. We observed Fiske-like resonant steps in its I-V curve in the presence of magnetic field. The device was placed in a waveguide mount, and its radiation was quasioptically coupled out of the cryostat, to a SIS-mixer spectrometer in the same frequency range, with a 4–8 GHz band for spectral analysis. We detected a coherent signal in the spectra when the array was biased on the first and third steps, respectively, at the first harmonic frequency of 242 GHz and at the fundamental frequency of 493 GHz, both being the Josephson frequencies associated with their dc voltages. This strongly suggests that this type of parallel arrays optimized for wideband rf coupling, though strongly discretized, hosts dynamic fluxon regimes similar to long Josephson junctions, which could find applications in superconducting digital electronics or integrated heterodyne submillimeter-wave receivers.

We observed coherent emission at the frequency of 76 GHz from a large-area array of 7500 niobium junctions embedded in the quasioptical resonator at liquid helium temperature. The maximal detected power of 2 μW was measured by a room temperature superheterodyne receiver. To explain the coherent behavior of the array of Josephson junctions, electromagnetic field simulations were performed. Considering the substrate as a dielectric resonator antenna, the coherent emission was excited if the locations of each subarray coincided with the positions of the maximum electric field intensity in the substrate resonance mode.

Extensive measurements of radiation emitted from long Josephson junctions d.c.-current biased on zero-field and Fiske-steps are reported. The measurements were made in the band 8-10 GHz on long Nb-Nb oxide-Pb overlap tunnel junctions with the lengths 0.5 mm and 1.0 mm having fundamental frequencies of 10 GHz and 5 GHz, respectively. Depending on the fundamental frequency of the junction 1st or 2nd harmonic detection was employed. In the fundamental scheme the frequency f n vs. the d.c.-voltage V n along the steps follows a modified Josephson voltage/frequency relation f n / V n = 2 e/nh , where n is the step-number n = 1, 2, 3,... for Fiske-steps and n = 2, 4, 6,... for zero-field steps. On a given step the frequency could be tuned (200-500 MHz) by varying the bias point. The linewidth was measured to be less than 5 kHz. All the observed phenomena are consistent with a novel unified dynamic bunched fluxon model applicable to both zero-field and Fiske-steps and are in good agreement with recent numerical solutions of the perturbed sine-Gordon equation with proper boundary conditions. Taking advantage of operation on higher order steps and strong harmonic generation the present upper frequency limit for the Josephson fluxon oscillator is above 200 GHz. The maximum power observed so far is only 5 pW, but the estimated available power is of the order 1 μW, which is quite sufficient to pump other Josephson devices.