Power handling and responsivity of submicron wide superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators

The sensitivity of microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) based on coplanar waveguides (CPWs) needs to be improved by at least an order of magnitude to satisfy the requirements for space-based terahertz astronomy. Our aim is to investigate if this can be achieved by reducing the width of the CPW to much below what has typically been made...

Reduced frequency noise in superconducting resonators

We report a reduction in the frequency noise in coplanar waveguide superconducting resonators. The reduction of 7 dB is achieved by removing the exposed dielectric substrate surface from the region with high electric fields and by using NbTiN. In a model-analysis the surface of NbTiN is found to be a negligible source of noise, experimentally...

Minimal resonator loss for circuit quantum electrodynamics

We report quality factors of up to 500x10³ in superconducting resonators at the single photon levels needed for circuit quantum electrodynamics. This result is achieved by using NbTiN and removing the dielectric from regions with high electric fields. As demonstrated by a comparison with Ta, the crucial sources of intensity-dependent loss are...

Quasiparticle relaxation in high Q superconducting resonators

We present measurements of the quasiparticle relaxation time in Ta superconducting films shaped as planar resonators using the response of the complex conductivity to photon flux. These films have been implanted with magnetic (Mn) as well as non-magnetic atoms (Al). We find a significant decrease of the relaxation time with increasing impurity...

Noise in NbTiN, Al, and Ta Superconducting Resonators on Silicon and Sapphire Substrates

We present measurements of the frequency noise and resonance frequency temperature dependence in planar superconducting resonators on both silicon and sapphire substrates. We show, by covering the resonators with sputtered SiOx layers of different thicknesses, that the temperature dependence of the resonance frequency scales linearly with...

Enhancement of quasiparticle recombination in Ta and Al superconductors by implantation of magnetic and nonmagnetic atoms

The quasiparticle recombination time in superconducting films, consisting of the standard electron-phonon interaction and a yet to be identified low-temperature process, is studied for different densities of magnetic and nonmagnetic atoms. For both Ta and Al, implanted with Mn, Ta, and Al, we observe an increase in the recombination rate. We...

Quasiparticle Relaxation in Optically Excited High-Q Superconducting Resonators

The quasiparticle relaxation time in superconducting films has been measured as a function of temperature using the response of the complex conductivity to photon flux. For tantalum and aluminum, chosen for their difference in electron-phonon coupling strength, we find that at high temperatures the relaxation time increases with decreasing...

Contribution of dielectrics to frequency and noise of NbTiN superconducting resonators

We study NbTiN resonators by measurements of the temperature dependent resonance frequency and frequency noise. Additionally, resonators are studied covered with SiOx dielectric layers of various thicknesses. The resonance frequency develops a nonmonotonic temperature dependence with increasing SiOx layer thickness. The increase in the noise is...

Improved superconducting hot-electron bolometer devices for the THz range

Improved and reproducible heterodyne mixing (noise temperatures of 950 K at 2.5 THz) has been realized with NbN based hot-electron superconducting devices with low contact resistances. A distributed temperature numerical model of the NbN bridge, based on a local electron and a phonon temperature, has been used to understand the physical...