Improvements in Silicon Oxide Dielectric Loss for Superconducting Microwave Detector Circuits

Abstract—Dielectric loss in low-temperature superconducting integrated circuits can cause lower overall efficiency, particularly in the 90 to 220 GHz regime. We present a method to tune the dielectric loss for silicon oxide deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition at ambient temperatures. Deposition in an environment with a higher silane-to-oxygen ratio produces silicon oxide films with a lower loss-tangent and a slightly higher optical index of refraction, while contributing no appreciable change in film stress. We measured the dielectric loss by fabricat-ing a series of Nb-SiOx-Nb microstrip resonators in the frequency range of 6 to 9 GHz and comparing their temperature dependence to a model of parasitic two-level-system fluctuators. The dielectric loss-tangent of silicon oxide was improved from 6 × 10−3 for stoichiometric silicon dioxide to 2 × 10−3 for a more silicon-rich silicon oxide. We present details of the fabrication process and measurements of microstrip resonators. Index Terms—Dielectric, efficiency, loss-tangent, microwave resonators, plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition (PECVD), silicon oxide. I