Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Vortices And Quasiparticles In Superconducting Microwave Resonators, Ibrahim Nsanzineza

Dissertations - ALL

Superconducting resonators with high quality factors are of great interest in many areas. However, the quality factor of the resonator can be weakened by many dissipation channels including trapped magnetic flux vortices and nonequilibrium quasiparticles which can significantly impact the performance of superconducting microwave resonant circuits and qubits at millikelvin temperatures. Quasiparticles result in excess loss, reducing resonator quality factors and qubit lifetimes. Vortices trapped near regions of large microwave currents also contribute excess loss. However, vortices located in current-free areas in the resonator or in the ground plane of a device can actually trap quasiparticles and lead to a …

Flux-Tunable Superconducting Transmons For Quantum Information Processing, Matthew Ware

Dissertations - ALL

In this thesis, I describe a series of experiments using flux-tunable transmon qubits for quantum information processing. These qubits are designed with different levels of Josephson junction asymmetry. The first two chapters of this thesis will introduce the reader to superconducting qubits and circuit quantum electrodynamics. I will present experiments using the cQED architecture to implement fast photon swapping between an asymmetric qubit and a superconducting resonator using flux-driven sidebands. This is the first experimental observation of flux-driven sidebands in a superconducting system. This process also allows photon swaps between qubit and resonator to first order in the qubit-resonator coupling …

Microstrip Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices For Quantum Information Science, Michael Paul Defeo

Physics - Dissertations

Quantum-limited amplification in the microwave frequency range is of both practical and fundamental importance. The weak signals corresponding to single microwave photons require substantial amplification to resolve. When probing quantum excitations of the electromagnetic field, the substantial noise produced by standard amplifiers dominates the signal, therefore, several averages must be accumulated to achieve even a modest signal-to-noise ratio. Even worse, the back-action on the system due to amplifier noise can hasten the decay of the quantum state. In recent years, low-noise microwave-frequency amplification has been advancing rapidly and one field that would benefit greatly from this is circuit quantum electrodynamics …

Nonlinear Hydrodynamics Of Disentangled Flux-Line Liquids, Panayotis Benetatos, M. Cristina Marchetti

Physics - All Scholarship

In this paper we use non-Gaussian hydrodynamics to study the magnetic response of a flux-line liquid in the mixed state of a type-II superconductor. Both the derivation of our model, which goes beyond conventional Gaussian flux liquid hydrodynamics, and its relationship to other approaches used in the literature are discussed. We focus on the response to a transverse tilting field which is controlled by the tilt modulus, c44, of the flux array. We show that interaction effects can enhance c44 even in infinitely thick clean materials. This enhancement can be interpreted as the appearance of a disentangled flux-liquid fraction. In …

Theory Of Double-Sided Flux Decorations, M. Cristina Marchetti, David R. Nelson

Physics - All Scholarship

A novel two-sided Bitter decoration technique was recently employed by Yao et al. to study the structure of the magnetic vortex array in high-temperature superconductors. Here we discuss the analysis of such experiments. We show that two-sided decorations can be used to infer {\it quantitative} information about the bulk properties of flux arrays, and discuss how a least squares analysis of the local density differences can be used to bring the two sides into registry. Information about the tilt, compressional and shear moduli of bulk vortex configurations can be extracted from these measurements.

Plasticity In Current-Driven Vortex Lattices, Panayotis Benetatos, M. Cristina Marchetti

Physics - All Scholarship

We present a theoretical analysis of recent experiments on current-driven vortex dynamics in the Corbino disk geometry. This geometry introduces controlled spatial gradients in the driving force and allows the study of the onset of plasticity and tearing in clean vortex lattices. We describe plastic slip in terms of the stress-driven unbinding of dislocation pairs, which in turn contribute to the relaxation of the shear, yielding a nonlinear response. The steady state density of free dislocations induced by the applied stress is calculated as a function of the applied current and temperature. A criterion for the onset of plasticity at …

Driven Depinning Of Strongly Disordered Media And Anisotropic Mean-Field Limits, M. Cristina Marchetti, Alan Middleton, Karl Saunders, J. M. Schwarz

Physics - All Scholarship

Extended systems driven through strong disorder are modeled generically using coarse-grained degrees of freedom that interact elastically in the directions parallel to the driving force and that slip along at least one of the directions transverse to the motion. A realization of such a model is a collection of elastic channels with transverse viscous couplings. In the infinite range limit this model has a tricritical point separating a region where the depinning is continuous, in the universality class of elastic depinning, from a region where depinning is hysteretic. Many of the collective transport models discussed in the literature are special …

Patterned Geometries And Hydrodynamics At The Vortex Bose Glass Transition, M. Cristina Marchetti, David R. Nelson

Physics - All Scholarship

Patterned irradiation of cuprate superconductors with columnar defects allows a new generation of experiments which can probe the properties of vortex liquids by confining them to controlled geometries. Here we show that an analysis of such experiments that combines an inhomogeneous Bose glass scaling theory with the hydrodynamic description of viscous flow of vortex liquids can be used to infer the critical behavior near the Bose glass transition. The shear viscosity is predicted to diverge as

|T − TBG|−z at the Bose glass transition, with z ≃

6 the dynamical critical exponent.

Vortex Physics In Confined Geometries, M. Cristina Marchetti, David R. Nelson

Physics - All Scholarship

Patterned irradiation of cuprate superconductors with columnar defects allows a new generation of experiments which can probe the properties of vortex liquids by forcing them to flow in confined geometries. Such experiments can be used to distinguish experimentally between continuous disorder-driven glass transitions of vortex matter, such as the vortex glass or the Bose glass transition, and nonequilibrium polymer-like glass transitions driven by interaction and entanglement. For continuous glass transitions, an analysis of such experiments that combines an inhomogeneous scaling theory with the hydrodynamic description of viscous flow of vortex liquids can be used to infer the critical behavior. After …

A Hydrodynamic Approach To The Bose-Glass Transition, Panayotis Benetatos, M. Cristina Marchetti

Physics - All Scholarship

Nonlinear hydrodynamics is used to evaluate disorder-induced corrections to the vortex liquid tilt modulus for finite screening length and arbitrary disorder geometry. Explicit results for aligned columnar defects yield a criterion for locating the Bose glass transition line at all fields.

Hydrodynamics Of Liquids Of Arbitrarily Curved Flux-Lines And Vortex Loops, Panayotis Benetatos, M. Cristina Marchetti

Physics - All Scholarship

We derive a hydrodynamic model for a liquid of arbitrarily curved flux-lines and vortex loops using the mapping of the vortex liquid onto a liquid of relativistic charged quantum bosons in 2+1 dimensions recently suggested by Tesanovic and by Sudbo and collaborators. The loops in the flux-line system correspond to particle-antiparticle fluctuations in the bosons. We explicitly incorporate the externally applied magnetic field which in the boson model corresponds to a chemical potential associated with the conserved charge density of the bosons. We propose this model as a convenient and physically appealing starting point for studying the properties of the …

Picovoltmeter For Probing Vortex Dynamics In A Single Weak-Pinning Corbino Channel, T. W. Heitmann, Kang Yu, C. Song, M P. Defeo, B.L.T. Plourde

Physics - All Scholarship

We have developed a picovoltmeter using a Nb dc Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) for measuring the flux-flow voltage from a small number of vortices moving through a submicron weak-pinning superconducting channel. We have applied this picovoltmeter to measure the vortex response in a single channel arranged in a circle on a Corbino disk geometry. The circular channel allows the vortices to follow closed orbits without encountering any sample edges, thus eliminating the influence of entry barriers.

Weak Point Disorder In Strongly Fluctuating Flux-Line Liquids, Panayotis Benetatos, M. Cristina Marchetti

Physics - All Scholarship

We consider the effect of weak uncorrelated quenched disorder (point defects) on a strongly fluctuating flux-line liquid. We use a hydrodynamic model which is based on mapping the flux-line system onto a quantum liquid of relativistic charged bosons in 2+1 dimensions [P. Benetatos and M. C. Marchetti, Phys. Rev. B 64, 054518, (2001)]. In this model, flux lines are allowed to be arbitrarily curved and can even form closed loops. Point defects can be scalar or polar. In the latter case, the direction of their dipole moments can be random or correlated. Within the Gaussian approximation of our hydrodynamic model, …

Driven Vortices In Confined Geometry: The Corbino Disk, M. Cristina Marchetti

Physics - All Scholarship

The fabrication of artificial pinning structures allows a new generation of experiments which can probe the properties of vortex arrays by forcing them to flow in confined geometries. We discuss the theoretical analysis of such experiments in both flux liquids and flux solids, focusing on the Corbino disk geometry. In the liquid, these experiments can probe the critical behavior near a continuous liquid-glass transition. In the solid, they probe directly the onset of plasticity.

Viscoelastic Depinning Of Driven Systems: Mean-Field Plastic Scallops, M. Cristina Marchetti, Alan Middleton, Thomas Prellberg

Physics - All Scholarship

We have investigated the mean field dynamics of an overdamped viscoelastic medium driven through quenched disorder. The model introduced incorporates coexistence of pinned and sliding degrees of freedom and can exhibit continuous elastic depinning or first order hysteretic depinning. Numerical simulations indicate mean field instabilities that correspond to macroscopic stick-slip events and lead to premature switching. The model is relevant for the dynamics of driven vortex arrays in superconductors and other extended disordered systems.