Sharif Digital Repository

Characteristics of a lumped element L-C tank circuit resonator of high-Tc rf-SQUIDs, which plays an important role in the device operation, have been experimentally investigated, according to the corresponding simulations obtained by COMSOL Multiphysics. We experimentally investigated the characteristics of the resonators by measuring their scattering parameters, as well as evaluating the rf-SQUID signal. Our SQUIDs are made of sputtered YBCO thin films with 3-mm-diameter washer areas. Different configurations of the resonator are investigated, and it is observed that, by increasing the thickness of the dielectric in a specific range, the reflection coefficient (S11) increases. For the... 

We present the results on the correlation between the flux to voltage transfer function, Vspp, of the rf-SQUID and the rf-bias frequency as well as rf-bias power. Measurements were performed for different SQUID gradiometer samples chosen from the same batch or different batches. In order to have full control on the electronics parameters, an experimental rf-SQUID circuit was designed and implemented with an operation frequency of 600 MHz to 900 MHz. According to our findings, It has been observed that at any particular rf-bias power, Vspp vs. rf-bias frequency shows Sine-like behavior. We observed that the main lobe maxima exist close to the resonance frequency of the LC tank circuit and by... 

A RF SQUID electronic system has been implemented which works at the frequency range of 650MHz to 1GHz. By incorporating particle swarm algorithm for the optimization of the system parameters, the readout system could automatically set its parameters for a desired RF SQUID. Using the implemented system, the noise characteristics of a RF SQUID gradiometer is being measured. The measured flux noise of the High-Tc YBCO magnetometer is below 100μ Φ0/ √ Hz at 100Hz in unshielded environment  

A High Tc RF-SQUID Based magnetocardiography system is developed for operating in a passively unshielded environment, in which active shielding is implemented to compensate field noises for the low to midrange frequency range. The main part of the implemented active shield configuration is a feedback control system designed for environmental noise cancelation in particular that of the power lines. This control system includes two layers of inner and outer compensation coils with respect to the liquid Nitrogen Dewar as parts of the designed active shield. The inner coils are surrounding the HTS SQUIDs which are placed in axial gradiometric configuration inside the dewar. The outer coils are... 

The authors propose a new design for monolayer superconducting planar flux transformer integrated with a coplanar resonator serving as a gigahertz range tank circuit for high-Tc rf-SQUID magnetometers. Based on the proposed design, which is optimized using the finite element method, the transformer-resonator configuration is made of 200-nm-thick monolayer YBCO film on a crystalline LaAlO3 substrate. In this optimized design, the SQUID magnetometer is coupled through flip-chip configuration with the configuration providing high coupling coefficient between the devices. The design permits coupling of the rf signals to the SQUID efficiently, whereas the transformer is designed to couple the dc... 

We present a new approach for depth detection of hidden defects based on the analysis of the frequency spectrum of the output waveform in a nondestructive testing (NDT) system. In our eddy current Superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) based NDT system, we apply multiple frequencies to its single excitation coil in a magnetically unshielded environment. The excitation coil is a planar D-shaped printed circuit board coil, and a high-Tc gradiometer YBCO rf-SQUID is used as the electromagnetic sensor in this system. An automated two-dimensional nonmagnetic scanning robot is used to test samples with intentional defects at different depths. In this approach, a diagram labeled 'FFT... 

The noise level of the magnetometer and gradiometer RF SQUIDs were investigated using different shielding methods. The used methods include different active and passive shielding, such as Helmholtz configurations, locally compensation coils, superconducting bulks and μ-metal shields. For the passive shielding approach, using FEM simulation we have investigated the shielding effectiveness of superconducting bulks versus the use of μ-metal shielding. The superconducting shield is a YBCO circular bulk, which was made using melt-texture method and located in a distance in front of the SQUID. In this work the results of these shielding methods are presented and compared, while their effectiveness... 

We developed a novel magnetic coupling module, formed of a monolayer superconducting flux concentrator that is integrated with a coplanar resonator, strongly coupled to high-temperature superconducting radio frequency superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). Three types of resonators, including a long stripline resonator between the input loop and the pick-up loop of the flux concentrator, a complementary split ring resonator, and a spiral shape inside the input loop, are explored. The resonance quality factor of different patterns of these three types of the resonators, as well as their coupling to the SQUID, is evaluated using finite-element-method simulations. Several readout...