Reducing the susceptibility of lumped-element KIDs to two-level system effects

TL;DR

This study explores how microstrip coupling affects lumped-element Kinetic Inductance Detectors (LEKIDs) and demonstrates that careful dielectric removal can minimize performance degradation, enhancing their suitability for CMB experiments.

Contribution

It systematically investigates the impact of amorphous silicon-nitride dielectric coverage on LEKID performance, proposing a method to reduce two-level system effects.

Findings

Minimal degradation in dielectric loss with dielectric removal from high electric field regions.

Reduced noise and stable resonant frequency after dielectric mitigation.

Estimated detector sensitivity remains high with optimized dielectric coverage.

Abstract

Arrays of lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) optically coupled through an antenna-coupled transmission line are a promising candidate for future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. However, the dielectric materials used for the microstrip architecture are known to degrade the performance of superconducting resonators. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of microstrip coupling to a LEKID, focusing on a systematic study of the effect of depositing amorphous silicon-nitride on a LEKID. The discrete and spatially-separated inductive and capacitive regions of the LEKID allow us to vary the degree of dielectric coverage and determine the limitations of the microstrip coupling architecture. We show that by careful removal of dielectric from regions of high electric field in the capacitor, there is minimal degradation in dielectric loss tangent of a partially covered lumped-element resonator. We present the effects on the resonant frequency and noise power spectral density and, using the dark responsivity, provide an estimate for the resulting detector sensitivity.