Vortices trapped in thin-film superconducting microwave resonators can have a significant influence on the resonator performance. Using a variable-linewidth geometry for a weakly coupled resonator we are able to observe the effects of a single vortex trapped in the resonator through field cooling. For resonant modes where the vortex is near a current antinode, the presence of even a single vortex leads to a measurable decrease in the quality factor and a dispersive shift of the resonant frequency. For modes with the vortex located at a current node, the presence of the vortex results in no detectable excess loss and, in fact, produces an increase in the quality factor. We attribute this enhancement to a reduction in the density of nonequilibrium quasiparticles in the resonator due to the suppressed gap from the vortex.
@article{arxiv.1405.0256,
title = {Trapping a single vortex and reducing quasiparticles in a superconducting resonator},
author = {I. Nsanzineza and B. L. T. Plourde},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.0256},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
Combined with supplemental material: 10 pages, 9 figures; published version