Modeling losses in microstrip traveling wave kinetic inductance parametric amplifiers using the four and three wave mixing effect

Abstract

The performance of an amplifier is based on a high gain and a low noise. To minimize the noise problem at high frequencies, the superconducting parametric amplifier has been developed. It is a system that uses a non-linear process and a strong reference to transfer the energy to the original signal and their harmonics. Two types of processes are discussed in this thesis, the Four and Three-wave mixing (FWM and TWM). One implementation is the travelling-wave kinetic inductance parametric amplifier (TKIPA). It consists of a superconducting transmission line (TL), which uses its non-linear inductance to transfer the energy to the input signal. With the appropriated design, the blocking of undesirable harmonics to concentrate the power in the signal (and not in the harmonics) is possible. The first implementation of the TKIPA used a coplanar wave-guide (CPW), where impedances near 50 Ω are difficult to achieve. In this thesis, a TKIPA was designed using a microstrip. A 50 Ω microstrip line is easier to obtain, circumventing the problem of impedance mismatch with output electronics. We have presented two designs of a TKIPA based on superconducting microstrip, supporting FWM and TWM, respectively. Simulation results show that the designs blocked the undesirable frequencies, while obtaining a ≈ 50 Ω line. The losses in the device do not deteriorate significantly the performance of the device.