Surface acoustic wave unidirectional transducers for quantum applications

TL;DR

This study evaluates superconducting unidirectional surface acoustic wave transducers at microwave frequencies, demonstrating significant improvements in insertion loss and directivity for quantum signal routing applications.

Contribution

It introduces and experimentally compares unidirectional transducers with conventional ones, showing enhanced efficiency and directionality in quantum-compatible acoustic devices.

Findings

UDTs improve insertion loss by 4.7 dB

Directivity of 22 dB achieved in UDTs

Over 90% of power lost in IDTs is directed in the undesired direction

Abstract

The conversion efficiency of electric microwave signals into surface acoustic waves in different types of superconducting transducers is studied with the aim of quantum applications. We compare delay lines containing either conventional symmetric transducers (IDTs) or unidirectional transducers (UDTs) at 2.3 GHz and 10 mK. The UDT delay lines improve the insertion loss with 4.7 dB and a directivity of 22 dB is found for each UDT, indicating that 99.4 % of the acoustic power goes in the desired direction. The power lost in the undesired direction accounts for more than 90 % of the total loss in IDT delay lines, but only ~3 % percent of the total loss in the FEUDT delay lines.