Injection Locking and Coupling Dynamics in Superconducting Nanowire based Cryogenic Oscillators

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed numerical analysis of injection locking and mutual coupling in superconducting nanowire cryogenic oscillators, revealing key parameters for synchronization and potential applications in quantum computing and cryogenic neural networks.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive numerical study of locking and coupling mechanisms in superconducting nanowire oscillators, identifying key design parameters and control methods for synchronization.

Findings

Locking range depends on shunt resistance, inductance, and coupling strength.

Injected signal amplitude influences locked oscillation amplitude.

Phase difference between oscillators can be tuned via coupling strength.

Abstract

Oscillators designed to function at cryogenic temperatures play a critical role in superconducting electronics and quantum computing by providing stable, low noise signals with minimal energy loss.Here we present a comprehensive numerical study of injection locking and mutual coupling dynamics in superconducting nanowire based cryogenic oscillators.Using the design space of standalone ScNW based oscillator, we investigate two critical mechanisms that govern frequency synchronization and signal coordination in cryogenic computing architectures.First, an injection locking induced by an external AC signal with a frequency near the oscillators natural frequency, and second, the mutual coupling dynamics between two ScNW oscillators under varying coupling strengths.We identify key design parameters such as shunt resistance, nanowire inductance, and coupling strength that govern the locking range.Additionally, we examine how the amplitude of the injected signal affects the amplitude of the locked oscillation, offering valuable insights for power aware oscillator synchronization.Furthermore, we analyze mutual synchronization between coupled ScNW oscillators using capacitive and resistive coupling elements.Our results reveal that the phase difference between oscillators can be precisely controlled by tuning the coupling strength, enabling programmable phase encoded information processing.These findings could enable building ScNW based oscillatory neural networks, synchronized cryogenic logic blocks, and on chip cryogenic resonator arrays.