Superconductor Sensitive High Dynamic-range Receiver

Superconductor analog-to-digital converters (ADC) offer discriminating advantages in both bandwidth and fidelity due to very high sampling rates and quantum-accurate digitization based on counting of magnetic flux quanta. Multiple digital-RF receiver systems incorporating superconductor ADCs have been in operation for over four years in field-ready configurations at Government laboratories. We propose to develop heavily oversampled lowpass ADCs to deliver extremely high dynamic range in the low-end of the spectrum (20 MHz). This will be accomplished by simultaneously advancing the quantizer resolution and sample rate using newly available advanced fabrication process nodes. In addition, we propose advanced digital signal processing techniques to further improve signal-to-noise ratio. We have created a detailed roadmap for developing ADCs with increasingly higher performance during Phase I (Base and Option) as well as Phase II. Leveraging the strong design infrastructure developed during the last two years, we propose to complete the first new ADC milestone (design, fabrication, and testing) in Phase I Base itself while developing and simulating detailed circuit models for the next milestone, which will be completed in Phase I Option. Also in Phase I, we will refine the digital post-processing algorithms for the improved ADCs using models and measured data.