Vanadium superconducting microwave resonators on silicon wafers

  1. Y. Fujita,
  2. Y. Urade,
  3. Y. Hibino,
  4. M. Tsujimoto,
  5. K. Inomata,
  6. G. Fujii,
  7. and W. Mizubayashi
Understanding the correlation between material properties and microwave losses in superconducting films is a crucial subject for developing low-loss materials for quantum circuits.
We focus on vanadium (V) as a novel material for superconducting quantum devices and discuss loss in V films in relation to their structural properties. Using a sputtering method, we grow four V-film structures on (001)-oriented Si wafers, employing Nb and Ta as the buffer and capping layer materials, respectively: Nb/V/Ta, Nb/V, V/Ta, and V. X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy reveal that the V films grown on the Nb buffer layers have higher uniformity of lattice orientation and smaller grain size than that directly grown on the Si wafer. Coplanar waveguide resonators are fabricated from the four V-film structures, and averaged photon number (⟨nph⟩) dependences of internal quality factor (Qint) are obtained by performing microwave measurements. By analyzing the obtained Qint vs ⟨nph⟩, it is found that loss at the V surface is dominated by ⟨nph⟩-independent non-two-level-system (non-TLS) losses, which can be mitigated by introducing the Ta capping layer. Furthermore, the V films on the Nb buffer layers exhibit lower Qint in the ⟨nph⟩ range from 100 to 106 and higher non-TLS loss than that directly grown on Si wafers, even though the former has higher lattice-orientation uniformity than the latter. Origins of these trends might be relevant to V oxides, of which presence at surfaces and grain boundaries in bulk regions in the V resonators is suggested by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and/or V hydrides.

Investigating the performance of RPM JTWPAs by optimizing LC-resonator elements

  1. M.A. Gali Labarias,
  2. T. Yamada,
  3. Y. Nakashima,
  4. Y. Urade,
  5. and K. Inomata
Resonant phase-matched Josephson traveling-wave parametric amplifiers (RPM JTWPAs) play a key role in quantum computing and quantum information applications due to their low-noise,
broadband amplification, and quadrature squeezing capabilities. This research focuses on optimizing RPM JTWPAs through numerical optimization of parametrized resonator elements to maximize gain, bandwidth and quadrature squeezing. Our results show that optimized resonators can increase the maximum gain and squeezing by more than 5 dB in the ideal noiseless case. However, introducing the effects of loss through a lumped-element model reveals that gain saturates with increasing loss, while squeezing modes degrade rapidly, regardless of resonator optimization. These results highlight the potential of resonator design to significantly improve amplifier performance, as well as the challenges posed by current fabrication technologies and inherent losses.