2024/01/22 by Valentin Karam, Owen Medeiros, Karam, Valentin +11 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Superconducting and THz Device Technology #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2401.12360
openalex publication_date 2024/01/22 · openalex created_date 2024/01/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Efficiently simulating large circuits is crucial to the development of superconducting nanowire-based electronics. However, current simulation tools for this technology are not adapted to the scaling of circuit size and complexity. We focus on the multilayered heater-nanocryotron (hTron), a promising superconducting nanowire-based switch used in applications such as superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) readout. Previously, the hTron was modeled using traditional finite-element methods (FEM), which fall short in simulating systems at a larger scale. An empirical-based method would be better adapted to this task, enhancing both simulation speed and agreement with experimental data. In this work, we perform switching current and activation delay measurements on 17 hTron devices. We then develop a method for extracting physical fitting parameters used to characterize the devices. We build a SPICE behavioral model that reproduces the static and transient device behavior using these parameters, and validate it by comparing its performance to a model developed in prior work, showing an improvement in simulation time by several orders of magnitude. Our model provides circuit designers with a tool to help understand the hTron's behavior during all design stages, thus enabling broader use of the hTron across various new areas of application.