Special Issue on Metamaterials LHM

Nonlinear Josephson left-handed transmission lines

H. Salehi, R.R. Mansour and A.H. Majedi
Abstract: In the paper, a new nonlinear left-handed transmission line (NLHTL) that incorporates
arrays of Josephson junctions (JJs) is proposed. The nonlinearity of the newly developed Josephson
left-handed transmission line (JLHTL) is due to the highly nonlinear nature of the JJs that provide
the shunt inductances required to realise an LHTL. The current-voltage relationship of an array of
JJs is utilised to realise an inductively tunable LHTL. Dispersion analysis along with the scattering
parameters of the JLHTL are presented to study the left-handed behaviour of the JLHTL. Finally,
harmonic generation of the proposed JLHTL is studied.
1 Introduction
Articial electromagnetic materials with effective negative
permittivity and permeability have attracted the microwave
community in recent years [1]. These structures, which
exhibit extraordinary properties that are not generally
found in nature, are referred to as negative index materials
(NIMs) or left-handed materials (LHMs).
LHMs are a result of the engineered electromagnetic
periodic structure with the unit cell dimensionality much
smaller than the operating wavelength. Experimental demon-
stration of LHMs has been shown by two major structures: an
array of split-ring resonators (SRRs) and wires [2, 3] and a
network of L-C loaded transmission lines [46]. Putting
aside the inherent frequency dispersiveness of both these
structures, they are initially expected to work in a linear
regime, in which the EM frequency does not depend on
the parameters of the input electromagnetic wave, such
as its associated amplitude. The structure of a nonlinear
left-handed transmission line (NLHTL) employing nonlinear
varactor diodes has been studied [79]. Other groups have
also studied an NLHTL that utilises the nonlinearity of
voltage controlled capacitors [10]. The nonlinear properties
of LHM involving split-ring resonators and conducting
wires have also been studied in the literature [1113].
In this paper, the properties of an NLHTL incorporating
nonlinear inductors were discussed briey by authors in
[14]. The structure is realised using large Josephson junc-
tion (JJ) arrays that act as nonlinear inductors. The non-
linear current-controlled inductance of a single Josephson
junction is far too small for use in the structure of an
LHTL and hence a stack of Josephson junction arrays is
required to provide the necessary inductance to realise an
NLHTL. The inductance of the stack of JJs can be altered
by using an external DC bias current, which results in an
inductively tunable LHTL. Dispersion analysis of the
Josephson left-handed transmission line (JLHTL) indicates
that the proposed structure exhibits a left-handed frequency
band, whose bandwidth is controlled by the DC bias current.
Harmonic generation of the proposed JLHTL, for the cases
where harmonic generation is weak, is also studied follow-
ing the analytical approach presented in [10].
2 Array of JJs
In this Section, the structure of the JJ that acts as a nonlinear
inductor in the LHTL structure is briey reviewed. A JJ
consists of two superconductive islands separated by a
thin insulating layer that allows Cooper pairs to tunnel
across the junction and form a supercurrent in the JJ.
From an electrical circuit point of view, an ideal-lumped
JJ can be treated as a nonlinear inductor. The inductance
of an individual JJ is too small for many RF and microwave
device applications. One obvious solution is to stack a large
number of JJs to devise reasonably large inductors that are
suitable for the design of an LHTL operating at microwave
frequencies. Arrays of JJs can be realised either by using
articially engineered JJ stacks containing hundreds of
junctions or intrinsic JJ stacks, with tens of thousands of
junctions present in crystalline layered high temperature
superconductors. As a result, an inductor in the range of a
few nH can be fabricated by such an array of JJs, well-suited
for many practical RF and microwave applications.
The total inductance of an array of JJs, consisting of N
junctions, becomes N times larger if the junctions are dis-
tanced properly from each other. Arrays of JJs have been
investigated for a number of applications such as parametric
ampliers, SIS mixer/amplier and tunable RF lters [15].
The supercurrent-voltage (i
J
2v
J
) characteristics of an
array of JJs can be described in terms of phase difference
of the macroscopic wavefunctions f of superconductive
regions as:
d
dt
ft
2p
F
o
v
J
t 1
i
J
t I
c
sinft=N 2
where F
o
2.067 10
215
Wb is the single ux quantum
and N is the number of JJs in each array. If RF elds are
applied to a JJ biased with DC I
DC
, assuming the RF
elds are small enough not to break up the phase coherence
across the JJ, the external eld merely causes oscillation in
phase and, therefore, the junction behaves as an inductor.
# The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2007
doi:10.1049/iet-map:20060335
Paper rst received 30th November 2005 and in revised form 18th April 2006
The Authors are with the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering,
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
E-mail: hsalehi@aftab.uwaterloo.ca
IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2007, 1, (1), pp. 6972 69
The inductance of the JJ is given by
LI
DC

NF
o
2pI
c
1

1 I
2
DC
=I
2
c

_ 3
When a sinusoidal voltage is applied to the arrays of JJs, the
current will contain not only the main frequency of the
external RF eld v, but also the harmonics of that due to
the inherent nonlinearity in each JJ via equations (1) and
(2). The harmonic generation of the JJs is discussed later.
The inductance of a JJ array of 500 junctions, with critical
current of I
c
100 mA as a function of the bias current, is
depicted in Fig. 1.
3 Josephson LHTL
The nonlinear inductance of the JJs can be incorporated
in the structure of an LHTL to realise a tunable LHTL. In
the analysis that follows, it is assumed that all the JJs are
operating in the s-state, or superconductive state, and there-
fore the effect of loss on the performance of the JLHTL (see
Fig. 2) is neglected. The index of refraction of the proposed
JLHTL and the left-handed frequency band of the JLHTL
are controlled with a DC bias current source. Following
Floquets theorem for a loaded transmission line [6], the
propagation constant of the JLHTL is given by
cos bd cos u
pI
c
N

1 I
DC
=I
c

2
_
v
2
CF
o
cos
2
u
2

1
2vCZ
0

pI
c
N

1 I
DC
=I
c

2
_
vF
o
Y
0
_
_
_
_
sin u 4
where I
c
is the critical current, F
o
is the single ux quantum
and N is the number of JJ arrays in each unit cell. To
decrease the effect of the inductance uctuations of the
JJs due to RF elds, the two arrays of JJs are used in each
JLHTL unit cell, as shown in Fig. 3. Direct current is paral-
lel to the RF current in one stack and antiparallel in the
other. For a nonzero DC bias current, the net current is
always increasing through the one stack and decreasing
through the other one by the RF current, depending on the
DC direction. This considerably diminishes the inductance
uctuations of the stack JJs due to RF current. The dis-
persion diagram of the JLHTL without the DC bias
current reduces to
cos bd cos u
pI
c
N
v
2
CF
o
cos
2
u
2

1
2vCZ
0

pI
c
N
vF
o
Y
0
_ _
sin u 5
which is identical to the dispersion relation of a distributed
LHTL studied in [6]. Assume a JLHTL with unit cell length
d 7.5 mm, external series capacitors C 1.0 pF, and
shunt arrays of JJs with 500 JJs stacked together with criti-
cal current I
c
100 mA. The dispersion diagram of the
JLHTL without a DC bias current is depicted in Fig. 4.
The diagram determines a frequency band from 1.75 GHz
to 4.4 GHz, in which the structure exhibits left-handed
behaviour. To investigate the effect of the DC bias current
of the JJs, the dispersion diagram of the innite JLHTL
and the scattering parameters of a 10 unit cell JLHTL is
simulated for I
DC
0, I
DC
0.5 I
c
and I
DC
0.75 I
c
. The
dispersion diagram of the JLHTL, shown in Fig. 5, indicates
that increasing the DC bias current reduces the Bragg
cut-off frequency of the JLHTL. Changing the DC bias
current from 0 to 0.75 I
c
results in a tuning range of 20%,
which is considerably larger than the tuning range of the
superconductive left-handed transmission line incorporating
arrays of JJs, which was reported by the authors in [16]. The
s-parameters of the JLHTL, depicted in Fig. 6, also conrms
that the left-handed frequency band of the JLHTL is shifted
by changing the DC bias current.
Fig. 1 Nonlinear inductance of JJ array of 500 junction with
critical current I
c
100 mA as a function of bias current
Fig. 3 Array of biased JJs incorporated in JLHTL unit cell
Fig. 4 Dispersion diagram of the proposed JLHTL with unit cell
length d 7.5 mm, external series capacitors C 1.0 pF and
shunt arrays of JJs with 500 JJs stacked together with critical
current I
c
100 mA Fig. 2 Josephson left-handed transmission line (JLHTL)
IET Microw. Antennas Propag., Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2007 70
4 Harmonic analysis of JLHTL
The highly nonlinear nature of the JJ arrays incorporated in
the JLHTL structure indicates the necessity of the harmonic
analysis of the JLHTL. Consider a JLHTL that consists of a
highpass network of capacitors and Josephson junction
arrays as depicted in Fig. 7. For simplicity, the conventional
transmission line that is required to connect the left-handed
elements are removed. To analyse the harmonic generation
of the JLHTL, the analytical procedure presented in [10] is
followed. As mentioned earlier, with arrays of JJs always in
the superconductive state, the effect of loss in the JLHTL can
safely be ignored. Nonlinear current-voltage waves that pro-
pagate in the JLHTL are governed by Kirchhoffs laws
c
d
dt
v
n
v
n1
i
n1
6
dc
n
dt
v
n
7
where c
n
(Nf
o
/2p) arcsin (I
n
/I
c
) is the magnetic ux
stored in nth unit cell. Taylor series expansion of the mag-
netic ux to the third degree is c
n
c
1,n
I
n
c
3,n
I
n
3
/
3! O(I
n
5
), where c
1,n
NF
o
/(2pI
c
) and c
3,n
NF
o
/
(2pI
c
3
). Assuming that harmonic terms are small compared
to the original signal, the discrete wave equations for the
fundamental and third harmonic currents are given by
I
v
n1
2I
v
n
I
v
n1

1
v
2
Cc
1
I
v
n
0 8
I
3v
n1
2I
3v
n
I
3v
n1

1
9v
2
Cc
1
I
v
n
K
3
NL
I
v
n1

3
2I
v
n

3
I
v
n1

3
9
The fundamental current wave I
n
, serves as the forcing
function for the third-harmonic-current wave according
to (9). Assuming, for simplicity, that only the positive-
travelling fundamental wave is excited, the solution of the
homogenous wave equation (8) is
I
n
I
0
exp|b
1
n 10
where b
m
2 arcsin (k
m
/ 2) and k
m
2
1 / [(m v)
2
C c
1, n
].
Solving the resultant inhomogeneous difference equation,
I
n
3v
is found as follows:
I
3v
n

4K
NL
I
3
0
sin
2
3b
1
=2 exp|
3
n
exp |b
3
3b
1
n 1
k
3
m
4 sin
2
3b
1
=2
11
where K
NL
c
3,n
/(3!c
1,n
) is the nonlinearity factor. The
third harmonic affecting the JLHTL is dened by
m
3
(i
n
3v
/i
n
v
)
2
and is calculated using (11)
m
3
K
2
NL
I
4
0
F
A
b
1
; b
3
F
c
u 12
where
F
A
b
1
; b
3

sin
2
b
1
=2
sin
2
b
3
=2
sin
2
3b
1
=2
sin
2
b
3
=2 sin
2
3b
1
=2
_ _2
and F
C
(u) sin
2
(u/2) with u (b
3
23b
1
)n. Equation (12)
shows the nonlinearity of the JLHTL, which is similar to the
NLHTL that employed nonlinear capacitors [10]. Third
harmonic generation of the JLHTL is possible if the operat-
ing frequency is between the Bragg frequency, f
b
, and f
c1
. In
the JLHTL, jb
3
23b
1
j is large, which gives rise to a highly
localised energy exchange between the fundamental wave
Fig. 7 JLHTL unit cell without host TL
Fig. 8 Third harmonic efciency of JLHTL as a function of
frequency
Fig. 5 Dispersion diagramof the JLHTL for I
DC
0, I
DC
0.5 I
c
and I
DC
0.75 I
c
Fig. 6 S-parameters of a 10 unit cell JLHTL for I
DC
0,
I
DC
0.5 I
c
and I
DC
0.75 I
c
IET Microw. Antennas Propag., Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2007 71
and its third harmonic while propagating along the JLHTL.
Distinct properties of the nonlinear JLHTL stems from the
anomalous dispersion of the JLHTL. The third harmonic
efciency of a JLHTL with C 0.3 pF, I
c
20 mA and
100 JJs in each array is given in Fig. 8. The analysis in
Fig. 8 shows that there are two frequency ranges at which
high harmonic efciency can be achieved. However, the
analytical model presented in [10] is not able to nd accu-
rately the harmonic efciency of the JLHTL in the fre-
quency bands that one would expect with the high
efciency. This is due to the fact that this model is valid
only if the harmonic efciency is low. Fig. 9 shows the har-
monic efciency of a 9 unit cell JLHTL operating at
5.3 GHz as a function of current. As expected, the harmonic
generation increases as the current that passes through the
JJs increases. The maximum current shown in Fig. 9 is
I 0.25 I
c
. Increasing the current similarly invalidates the
analytical model as it results in a strong harmonic
generation.
5 conclusion
The paper has presented an analysis of the Josephson
left-handed transmission line (JLHTL). The structure consists
of a highpass network of capacitors and Josephson junction
arrays that act as nonlinear inductors. The current dependency
of the inductances of the JJ arrays results in a tunable structure,
whose properties can be controlled by a DCbias current. Adis-
persion diagram and S-parameters of a 10 unit cell JLHTL
has been presented to study the tunability of the left-handed
frequency band of the JLHTL. The analysis shows that the
tunable JLHTL can have a tuning range of about 20%. The
nonlinear nature of the JJs incorporated in the JLHTL results
in a nonlinear JLHTL. Harmonic generation of the JLHTL
was analysed for weak harmonic generation.
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Fig. 9 Third harmonic efciency of JLHTL at f 5.3 GHz
IET Microw. Antennas Propag., Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2007 72