Electrically-Small Superconducting Wide-Bandwidth Receiver

ABSTRACT: This work will develop high-transition temperature (HTS) Superconducting QUantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) for wide-bandwidth receiver applications. Two dimensional arrays of ion damaged Josephson junctions will be designed and simulated to achieve a highly linear voltage response for unlocked operation. A variety of thin film YBCO HTS materials will be grown and patterned with ion damage junctions to investigate how the unique properties of each material affect the uniformity and ICRN properties of the junctions. Prototype broadband receiver elements will be investigated using HTS tapes. High quality YBCO tapes from STI will be patterned as coplanar waveguides and tested for their viability as a new interconnect technology. Two dimensional SQUID arrays with ion damage junctions will be fabricated on the HTS tapes to determine the feasibility of the tape structure for SQUID array devices. BENEFIT: This work will advance ion damage SQUID devices through enhanced engineering knowledge of materials selection to achieve the desired HTS device properties specific for receiver applications. SQUID devices directly transduce the magnetic flux threading the SQUID loop and the superconducting energy gap of typical HTS YBCO thin films are in the 100s of GHz to THz. Therefore SQUID devices are natively broadband and capable of operating at microwave frequencies. Simulations are anticipated to enable the engineering of high linearity SQUID arrays as required for unlocked operation. Ultimately, wideband receivers incorporating these SQUID arrays may be realized with much smaller weight and size than conventional systems.