We developed an optical pulse-drive for the operation of the Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer (JAWS) using a fast photodiode (PD) operated at 4 K, close to the JAWS chip. The optical pulses are transmitted to the PD by an easy-removable optical fiber attached to it. A bare lensed PD is mounted by flip-chip technique to a custom-made silicon-carrier chip. This carrier chip is equipped with coplanar waveguides to transmit the electrical pulses from the PD to the JAWS chip mounted on a separate PCB-board. The main components of this optical setup are a laser source, a high-speed Mach-Zehnder modulator and the modulator driver. The waveform pattern is supplied by a commercial pulse pattern generator providing up to 15 GHz electrical RTZ-pulses. Unipolar sinusoidal waveforms were synthesized. Using a JAWS array with 3000 junctions an effective output voltage of 6.6 mV RMS (18.6 mV PP) at the maximum available clock-frequency of 15 GHz was achieved. Higher harmonics were suppressed by more than 90 dBc at laser-bias operation margins of more than 1 mA.

An optoelectronic module for operation at 4 K is developed, intended for use in pulse-driven Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizer. Multiple InP/InGaAs photodiodes with customized optical fiber assembly were assembled on a single silicon carrier. Photodiodes were flip-chip bonded on the carrier using Au stud bumps, and laser-cut silicon fixtures were aligned and adhesively bonded to the carrier in order to attach pigtailed borosilicate ferrules. Optical simulations were performed to estimate the tolerance for fiber-chip misalignment. The photodiodes were bonded with an average misalignment of 8 μm, while the misalignment between the silicon fixture and the photodiodes after bonding was 13 μm. The electrical response to continuous-wave laser inputs was measured at room temperature and at 4 K by direct immersion in liquid helium. The results show that the assembly technique could facilitate a stable and efficient optical coupling. The individual photodiodes were able to deliver currents up to 12 mA at room temperature and 7 mA at 4 K.

An optically controlled high-speed current source located at 4 K is likely to improve the performance of pulse-driven Josephson junction arrays. A custom photodiode module with an Albis PDCS24L InGaAs/InP PIN photodiode is investigated in order to determine the suitability at 4 K. The DC and frequency response were tested at room temperature and at temperatures down to 4 K. For continuous wave optical input, photocurrents above 15 mA were produced at both room temperature and 4 K. I–V measurements show that the threshold voltage increased from 0.5 V at room temperature to 0.8 V at 4 K. The transmission coefficient S₂₁ of the optoelectronic system, including cables and modulated laser source, was measured using a vector network analyzer. Up to 14 GHz, the results showed that the frequency response at 4 K was not degraded compared to room temperature. At room temperature, reverse bias voltages of up to 3 V was required for the highest bandwidth, while at 4 K, the photodiode was operated at nearly full speed even at 0 V reverse bias.

We performed a systematic study involving simulation and experimental techniques to develop induced-junction silicon photodetectors passivated with thermally grown SiO₂ and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) SiN_x thin films that show a record high quantum efficiency. We investigated PECVD SiN_x passivation and optimized the film deposition conditions to minimize the recombination losses at the silicon–dielectric interface as well as optical losses. Depositions with varied process parameters were carried out on test samples, followed by measurements of minority carrier lifetime, fixed charge density, and optical absorbance and reflectance. Subsequently, the surface recombination velocity, which is the limiting factor for internal quantum deficiency (IQD), was obtained for different film depositions via 2D simulations where the measured effective lifetime, fixed charge density, and substrate parameters were used as input. The quantum deficiency of induced-junction photodiodes that would be fabricated with a surface passivation of given characteristics was then estimated using improved 3D simulation models. A batch of induced-junction photodiodes was fabricated based on the passivation optimizations performed on test samples and predictions of simulations. Photodiodes passivated with PECVD SiN_x film as well as with a stack of thermally grown SiO₂ and PECVD SiN_x films were fabricated. The photodiodes were assembled as light-trap detector with 7-reflections and their efficiency was tested with respect to a reference Predictable Quantum Efficient Detector (PQED) of known external quantum deficiency. The preliminary measurement results show that PQEDs based on our improved photodiodes passivated with stack of SiO₂/SiN_x have negligible quantum deficiencies with IQDs down to 1 ppm within 30 ppm measurement uncertainty.

In this article, developments and techniques related to optical-fiber-coupled devices operating at cryogenic temperatures are reviewed. These devices include superconducting electronics and photodetectors. Superconducting circuits have a number of suitable characteristics in terms of speed and efficiency, lower power consumption, and traceability to fundamental quantum properties. Thus, applications are found in a number of technologies, such as communication and metrology. Often, the devices are coupled by an optical fiber link to an external source. A suitable design of the optical coupling at cryogenic temperatures entails considerations of electromagnetic behavior, geometry, components, material choices, and customized packaging schemes. Minimizing thermomechanical stresses and deformation is a challenge due to the extreme temperature span, from room temperature to below 10 K. Due to the thermomechanical properties at low temperatures, with high contraction and brittleness of some materials, careful design and testing is dictated for the method of mechanical attachment and alignment techniques to avoid failure. Solutions for the efficient, robust optical coupling remain a challenge for some of these devices.

For uncooled infrared cameras based on microbolometers, silicon caps are often utilized to maintain a vacuum inside the packaged bolometer array. To reduce Fresnel reflection losses, anti-reflection coatings are typically applied on both sides of the silicon caps.This work investigates whether black silicon may be used as an alternative to conventional anti-reflective coatings. Reactive ion etching was used to etch the black silicon layer and deep cavities in silicon. The effects of the processed surfaces on optical transmission and image quality were investigated in detail by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and with modulated transfer function measurements. The results show that the etched surfaces enable similar transmission to the state-of-the-artanti-reflection coatings in the 8–12 µm range and possibly obtain wider bandwidth transmission up to 24 µm. No degradation in image quality was found when using the processed wafers as windows. These results show that black silicon can be used as an effective anti-reflection layer on silicon caps used in the vacuum packaging of microbolometer arrays.