Intermode Dephasing in a Superconducting Stripline Resonator


  Oren Suchoi [1]  ,  Baleegh Abdo [1,2]  ,  Eran Segev [1]  ,  Oleg Shtempluck [1]  ,  Miles Blencowe [3]  ,  Eyal Buks [1]  
[1] Technion, Israel
[2] Yale University, USA
[3] Darthmouth College, USA

We study superconducting stripline resonator (SSR) made of Niobium, which is integrated with a superconducting interference device (SQUID). The Josephson junctions are nanobridge type weak links and the system is measured at liquid helium temperature of 4.2K.The DC-SQUID introduces linear and non-linear inductance which can be modulated using external magnetic flux. We demonstrate that the resonance frequency of the SSR is depended periodically on the flux applied on the SQUID due to the modulation in the linear inductance. We also found that the system behavior changes from hysteretic response to non-hysteretic response as the input power is changed. The large nonlinear inductance of the SQUID also gives rise to strong Kerr nonlinearity in the response of the SSR, which in turn results in strong coupling between different modes of the SSR. We experimentally demonstrate that such intermode coupling gives rise to dephasing of microwave photons. The dephasing rate also depends periodically on the external magnetic flux applied to the SQUID, where the largest rate is obtained at half integer values (in units of the flux quantum). To account for our result we compare our findings with theory and find good agreement.