Abstract
Quasiparticle (qp) poisoning is a major issue that impairs the operation of various superconducting devices. Even though these devices are often operated at temperatures well below the critical point where the number density of excitations is expected to be exponentially suppressed, their bare operation and stray microwave radiation excite the non-equilibrium qp’s. Here we use voltage-biased superconducting junctions to demonstrate and quantify qp extraction in the turnstile operation of a superconductor–insulator–normal metal–insulator–superconductor single-electron transistor. In this operation regime, excitations are injected into the superconducting leads at a rate proportional to the driving frequency. We reach a reduction of density by an order of magnitude even for the highest injection rate of 2.4 × 108 qp’s per second when extraction is turned on.
Highlights
Quasiparticle poisoning is a major issue that impairs the operation of various superconducting devices
I n superconducting circuits, it is important to minimize the number of non-equilibrium quasiparticles, as they deteriorate the operation of various devices, such as the coherence of quantum bits based on Josephson junctions[1−5] or Majorana nanowires,[6,7] cooling power of superconducting microcoolers,[8,9] sensitivity of kinetic inductance detectors,[10−12] and performance of superconducting resonators in other applications.[13,14]
In principle, bringing the system to temperatures T much below the superconducting transition should reduce the number of excitations, as at kBT ≪ Δ their equilibrium number density nqp is suppressed exponentially
Summary
M.M.-S. performed simulations, analyzed the data, and performed the resistivity measurements. J.T.P. fabricated the devices and performed the rest of the experiments. The calculation of the injected power was done by J.P.P and M.M.S. The manuscript was written by M.M.-S. with important input from J.T.P. and J.P.P. M.M.-S. and J.T.P. contributed to the research
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