This paper introduces a proto-type model of a superconducting packet switch which is composed of an input buffer, a contention solver, and a distribution network. The contention solver checks for contention by comparing packet addresses while sorting the packets. The input buffer is used for waiting when contention occurs. The distribution network distributes packets which are guaranteed to be contention-free by the contention solver. The design of the proto-type has been completed and the operation has been numerically simulated and confirmed. The elementary circuits of the input buffer, the contention solver, and the distribution network are fabricated by standard Nb tri-layer process and the correct operations are confirmed.

Superconductive LSIs with Josephson junctions have features such as low power dissipation and high switching speed. In this paper, we review our developed 4-Kbit RAM with vortex transitional memory cells as an illustration of superconductive LSIs with Josephson junctions. We have developed a fabrication process technology for the 4-Kbit RAM. In the 4-Kbit RAM, 380ps access time and 9.8 mW power dissipation have been experimentally obtained. And also, we have estimated a suitable moat structure to reduce the influence of trapped magnetic structure. The 4-Kbit RAM has been successfully operated with a bit yield of 99.8%. Furthermore, we discuss GHz testing which is one of the most significant issues concerning superconductive digital LSIs.

A binary counter circuit in the extended phase-mode logic (EPL) family is presented. The EPL family utilizes a single flux quantum as an information bit carrier. Numerical simulations show that a binary counter circuit with a Josephson critical current density of 1 kA/cm² can operate up to a 30 GHz input signal. The circuit has been fabricated using Nb/AlO_x/Nb Josephson junction technology. New interface circuits are employed in the fabricated chip. A low speed test result shows the correct operation of the binary counter.

In this paper, oscillation modes produced in a Josephson circuit and its application to digital systems are described. The analysis is performed using an analog simulator to model the Josephson junction, in addition to computer simulation. The experimental results concerning oscillation modes agree well with the simulation results. The main advantage of the mapping for the oscillation modes is that it allows understanding of the relationships among oscillation modes and circuit parameters at first sight. In addition, a novel application of nonlinear oscillation to digital systems is described.

A new 19-channel SQUID magnetometer system has been developed for research use in order to measure the neuromagnetic fields originating from cortices of the human brain.The system could function for 6 days with a one-time supply of about 25 L of liquid helium. The system consists of Nb/Al-oxide/Nb SQUID sensors with 2nd-order gradiometers, tank circuits, readout electronics, a liquid helium dewar, a gantry, and a prefabricated shielded room. The gradiometers cover a circular area of 15 cm radius. We used fine stainless steel leads for electric connection between the sensors and room-temperature electronics with low thermal conduction in a low helium consumption dewar. The system could function for 6 days with a one-time supply of about 25L of liquid helium. The system can be thermally cycled for repeated measurements, with an intervening nonusage period at room temperature. The noise characteristics, for both the time and frequency domains, of all channels were measured. From an analysis of the voltage output at the phase-sensitive detector, the flux-origin noise which is generated by external sources was dominant in the white noise frequency. The power spectra of the noise field were below 10 fT/Hz^1/2 at 10-100 Hz and below 18 fT/Hz^1/2 at 1-10 Hz. Some other peaks of power line frequencies such as 50 Hz and 150 Hz were observed at several channels. Sound-evoked magnetic fields were measured from the temporal area of the head upon application of tone bursts. The evoked fields were recorded with the amplitude of about 250 fT_pp. The isofield contours of the peak response showed that the measurement area is large enough to estimate current dipoles. It is confirmed that the system has the ability to measure magnetic fields from the human brain.

We have developed a strato-mesospheric ozone monitoring system with a low noise SIS mixer, which receives 110.836 GHz millimeter-wave emission due to the rotational transition of ozone molecules (J=6_1,56_0,6). The system is completely standalone. We derived the altitude profile of ozone density between 25 km and 80 km from the observed spectrum. The receiver noise temperature was as low as 17 K (DSB), so that the altitude profile could be obtained every 3-10 minutes. The monitoring system can operate continuously over one year without any maintenance work, because it utilizes a 4 K closed cycle helium refrigerator and reliable Nb/AIO_x/Nb SIS junctions. We used two acousto-optical spectrometers (AOSs) as real-time spectrometers because of their high resolution and simple construction. In an up-to-date system, one AOS would have a band-width of 65 MHz and the other, a band-width of 250 MHz with resolutions of 40 kHz and 250 kHz, respectively. A computer controls the entire system and is also used to analyze measured data. In this paper, we present the principles of system operation, the latest performance and the construction of the system, and some observed data.

A high-T_c superconducting filter of the planar structure is proposed for handling higher power signals and for miniaturizing the filter configuration. The filter is designed with a single disk-resonator shared by two degenerate modes to operate as a two-stage bandpass filter. Thereby the proposed filter is expected to possess high power handling capability as a conventional filter with two resonator disks does while the filter configuration is about a half in area compared to the conventional one. The Tchebyscheff type filter with 5.1 GHz center frequency and 2% relative bandwidth was fabricated using a high-T_c superconducting thin film. The passband insertion loss, L_o, was approximately 0.8 dB at 77 K. The low loss performance due to the superconductivity was observed at incident signal levels up to 41.2 dBm (around 15 W) at 20 K, which is limited by the power devices in the measurement setup. In addition, good linearity in the filter responses was confirmed by observing the intermodulation distortion with the two-tone method, which indirectly shows a stable operation with higher power incident signals.

Here we report on a fabrication and a millimeter-wave performance of reliable and reproducible high-T_c superconducting (HTS) Josephson junctions on MgO substrates using a focused Ga ion beam (FIB). The junction normal resistance R_n can be controlled by making the junction in a series. The R_n depends on space between each junction in the series structure. A mechanism of the junction is proposed by measuring cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images and their X-ray spectra of Ga, Y, Ba, Cu, Mg and O. The junctions with more than 1 µm spaces, and flat and lateral structure are independent each other for the crystallization process. We observe the HTS mixer-antenna performance as fundamental/harmonic mixers in the wide frequency range up to 100 GHz.

A quasi-optical Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) mixer has been designed and tested in the 270-GHz band. The mixer used a substrate-lens-coupled log-periodic antenna and a tuning circuit for RF matching. The antenna is planar and self-complementary, and has a frequency-independent impedance of around 114 Ω over several octaves. The tuning circuit consists of two Nb/AIO_x/Nb tunnel junctions separated by inductance for tuning out the junction capacitances and a λ/4 impedance transformer for matching the resistance of the two-junction circuit to the antenna impedance. The IF output from the mixer is brought out in a balanced method at each edge of the antenna, and is coupled to a low noise amplifier through a balun transformer using a 180-degree hybrid coupler for broadband IF matching. Double sideband receiver noise temperatures, determined from experimental Y-factor measurements, are about 150 K across the majority of the desired operating frequency band. The minimum receiver noise temperature of 120 K was measured at 263 GHz, which is as low as that of waveguide receivers. At this frequency, measurement of the noise contribution to the receiver results in input losses of 90 K, mixer noise of 17 K, and multiplied IF noise of 13 K. We found that the major sources of noise in our quasi-optical receiver were the optical losses.

Resonant properties of resistance shunted tunnel junctions have been investigated using the RLCSJ model. We found that an increase in dc current resulted from an increase in impedance of the shunted tunnel junctions. The static and dynamic properties of the shunted tunnel junctions were described in detail by numerical simulations and experiments. The simulated and measured results showed good agreement in I-V characteristics. A Josephson array oscillator has been proposed using the resonant properties for increasing oscillator output impedance. We designed and fabricated the oscillator with 20 shunted tunnel junctions. The output power of the oscillator delivered to the load resistor was estimated to be about 0.5µW at 312 GHz.

We have studied the performances of several types of vortex flow transistors including prototype flux flow transistors (FFTs), nanobridge vortex flow transistors (NBVFTs) based on a parallel array of nanobridges, planar Josephson vortex flow transistors (planar JVFTs) based on a parallel array of grain boundary Josephson junctions, and JVFTs with a stacked structure (stacked JVFTs). The NBVFTs had considerably higher magnetic field sensitivity and shorter response time than the FFTs. A flux-to-voltage transfer function V/φ of 2.6 m V/φ_o and a modulation depth of 0.5 mV were obtained for the NBVFT composed of 2 nanobridges, while the current gain was small. The temperature dependence of the device parameters (the dynamic resistance and the inductance) suggests that the surface barrier to the Abrikosov vortex entry into the nanobridge strongly contributes to the relatively large V/φ values. The response time of the nanobridge is estimated to be 5 ps. On the other hand, the JVFTs showed large current gains because of the small kinetic inductance of the Josephson junction. The planar JVFT composed of 3 Josephson junctions with an asymmetrical geometry showed a current gain of 2.2 at 4.2 K. Also, the stacked JVFT showed the current gain of 2.0, while the maximum value of V/φ was 210 µV/φ_o. The mutual inductance between the control line and the superconducting loop within the transistor was enhanced in the stacked JVFT. This enhancement may yield a short response time compared to that of the planar JVFT. When we apply these vortex flow transistors, we should take account of the properties peculiar to each transistor.

In the weakly coupled grain model which has been proposed to explain the residual surface resistance in high-T_c superconducting polycrystalline thin films, the superconducting polycrystalline thin films is described as a network of superconducting grains coupled via Josephson junctions. In order to evaluate this model we have fabricated the coplanar waveguide resonator using c-axis oriented YBa₂Cu₃O_x Thin Films and measured the residual surface resistance. The experimental results are in good agreement with theoretical prediction.

BaSnO₃ is proposed as a new insulating material with good surface coverage of the lower superconductor electrode for superconductor/insulator/superconductor (SIS) tunnel junctions made of high-T_c superconductor YBa₂Cu₃O_x (YBCO). This paper reports on investigation of the epitaxial nature of BaSnO₃ on YBCO thin films and YBCO/BaSnO₃ /YBCO trilayer formation that are grown in situ by reactive co-evaporation in oxygen radicals. Investigation was done by reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). these observations confirm that (001)-oriented YBCO and (100)-oriented BaSnO₃ thin films with atomically smooth surfaces grow epitaxially on each other. In addition, cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation reveals that an approximately 4-nm-thick layer of BaSnO₃ perfectly covers the lower YBCO thin film surface steps to a height of 1 to 2 unit cells of YBCO. The zero-resistance critical temperature T_{c zero} of both the upper and the lower YBCO thin films is higher than about 86 K.

A close correlation between the YBa₂Cu₃O_y film morphology and location of the (100) MgO substrate during growth by excimer laser ablation was obtained. When the susbtrate was placed inside the fringe portion of the laser plume, the spiral shape was most clearly seen on the entire film surface for both the conventional and eclipse ablation methods. When the substrate was placed outside the plume, the spiral growth was less pronounced. On the other hand, when the substrate was placed inside the plume core, marked deformation of the morphology occurred, and the superconducting critical temperature was lowered. This correlation was explained to some extent by the spatial variation of kinetic energy of the flying growth species.

The 4th harmonics of a Nd:YAG laser beam (266 nm) is applied to fabricate highly oriented Y₁Ba₂Cu₃O_7-δ -SrTiO₃-Y₁Ba₂Cu₃O_7-δ multilayer structures. It has been shown that the emission temperature of a film surface will change during deposition, depending on deposition conditions, even though the heater temperature is constant. The change of substrate temperature is strongly correlated to film characteristics such as critical temperature, c-axis length, and resistivity. The insitu monitoring of the substrate temperature is useful for obtaining high-quality Y₁Ba₂Cu₃O_7-δ films reproducibly. It is also shown that a SrTiO₃ layer prevents oxygen restoration in a Y₁Ba₂Cu₃O_7-δ underlayer. The relationship between oxygen deficiency and the annealing conditions is studied.

Regenerative Pass-transistor Logic (RPL), a modular dual-rail circuit technique for high speed logic design that gives reasonably low power consumption, was developed. The technique can be applied to basic logic gates, full adders, multiplier units, and more complicated arithmetic logics like Conditional Carry Select (CCS) circuit. The magnitude of propagation delay time of RPL is smaller than the conventional CPL(Complementary Pass-transistor Logic), or DPL (Double Pass-transistor Logic). Low power consumption can also be achieved by reduced number of transistors and metal interconnections. Simulation and layout data also proved that RPL is advantageous over existing dual-rail logics while considering speed, power consumption and layout area.

Hot-carrier degradation of voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) was investigated by a reliability simulator known as BERT. The appropriate monitor of VCO frequency degradation shifts from the saturated drain current of an N MOSFET to linear drain current with an increase in VCO input voltage. The degradation of the VCO drastically increases with a small reduction in initial oscillation frequency. These results imply the need for an appropriate reliability margin around the standard operating point as well as a performance margin, which cannot be achieved by using conventional drain current monitors.