A Josephson analog limiter circuit

Conference · Wed Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1989 · IEEE Trans. Magn.; (United States)

OSTI ID:6087427

Peterson, D A; Hebert, D; VanDuzer, T

The authors have designed, fabricated and successfully tested a Josephson integrated circuit that is used to limit the range of an analog input signal. This is a very useful function when applied to existing Josephson comparator designs in that it extends the useful dynamic range of the comparator and can thus enable the construction of A/D converters with more resolution than previously possible. The circuit consists of a single Josephson junction with a suppressed critical current. The impedance of this suppressed junction consists of the nonlinear quasiparticle resistance in parallel with the capacitance of the junction. When connected to ground, this device has the appearance of a bilateral diode which can be used to shunt signals outside a +- V/sub g/ range. In implementation, the junction capacitance is used to advantage as one pole of a second-order low-pass filter, the other element of which is a thin-film inductor. This filter can perform the function of a slew-rate limiting filter at the input to a high-speed comparator. The authors have fabricated individual junctions and measured their suppression characteristics and have found a 2 ..mu.. x 4.5 ..mu.. junction with a nominal critical current of 170 ..mu..A can be suppressed to less than 4 ..mu..A of critical current with a 14 mA control current. Complete limiter circuits have been fabricated and tested for both their dc and transient characteristics, the latter of which was done using a Josephson sampling technique. Experimental results along with details of the circuit design and testing techniques are presented.

• Research Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Electronics Research Lab., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (US)
• OSTI ID: 6087427
• Report Number(s): CONF-880812-
• Conference Information: Journal Name: IEEE Trans. Magn.; (United States) Journal Volume: 25:2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420201* -- Engineering-- Cryogenic Equipment & Devices
420800 -- Engineering-- Electronic Circuits & Devices-- (-1989)
656100 -- Condensed Matter Physics-- Superconductivity
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ANALOG SYSTEMS
ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTERS
CRITICAL CURRENT
CURRENTS
DESIGN
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT
FABRICATION
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
JOSEPHSON JUNCTIONS
JUNCTIONS
MICROELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
PERFORMANCE
QUASI PARTICLES
SUPERCONDUCTING JUNCTIONS
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT