Nonreciprocal microwave transmission through a long Josephson junction in the flux-flow regime is studied analytically and numerically within the framework of the perturbed sine-Gordonmodel. We demonstrate that the maximum attenuation of the transmitted power occurs when the direction of the flux flow is opposite to the direction of the microwave propagation. This attenuation is nonreciprocal with respect to the flux-flow direction and can be enhanced by increasing the system length and proper impedance matching of the junction ends to external transmission line.
We continue detailed study of microwave properties of a superconducting left-handed tunable CPW transmission line (LHTL). The line consists of a central conductor, loaded with seriesof Josephson junctions as fixed inductors; the line is shunted with SQUIDs as tunable inductors. The inductance of the SQUIDs is varied in the range of 0.08-0.5 nH by applying an external dc magnetic field. The circuit is designed to have left- and right-handed transmission bands separated by a variable rejection band. At zero magnetic field, we observed only one pass-band between 8 and 10 GHz within the frequency range of 8-12 GHz. The rejection band is anticipated to appear between 10 GHz and 11 GHz by design, and it has been detected in our previous work. To solve the problem of standing waves and RF leak in measurements of our experimental 20-cell LHTL, we have designed a high-ratio (5-50 Ohm) wideband (8-11 GHz) impedance transformer integrated at the chip, along with improved sample holder. The experimental data are compared with numerical simulations.
We propose tunable superconducting split-ring resonators (SRRs) employing nonlinear Josephson inductance. A fraction of SRR is replaced by Nb-AlOx-Nb Josephson tunnel junctions connectedin parallel and forming a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), whose inductance is sensitive to the external dc magnetic field. Due to the lumped nature of the Josephson inductance, the SRR can be made very compact and its resonance frequency can be tuned by applying magnetic field. We present the model, results of extensive EM-simulation and experimental data for the SRR weakly coupled to a transmission line within frequency range 11-13 GHz.