The “Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer” (JAWS) was developed at PTB for many years. Based on a sophisticated multi-layer thin film technology, more than 40 000 SNS Josephson junctions can be integrated into one JAWS chip. Arbitrary waveforms with an amplitude of more than 1 V RMS in a frequency range up to ca. 1 MHz were synthesized.
To realize higher output voltages and to reduce the complexity/costs of the JAWS setup, it is necessary to increase the output voltage per JAWS chip and decrease the JAWS pulse drive lines.
One approach is the use of an optical pulse-drive. For this, a cryo-package of several high-speed photodiodes is realized by flip-chip technology. These photodiodes are operated at 4 K in the close vicinity of the JAWS arrays. So far, a four-channel optical drive with 6000 junctions in total was established, providing an output voltage of approx. 100 mV PP.
Another approach was realized by implementing on-chip Wilkinson power dividers. Here, an output voltage of 0.6 V RMS with 36 000 junctions was achieved. To further improve these power-dividers new compact lumped element dividers have been developed. First results will be presented.
To extend the JAWS to higher signal frequencies, the so-called RF-JAWS is developed at PTB, too. Frequencies of up to 10 GHz were realized. The latest RF-JAWS circuit design generations will be introduced, including on-chip diplexer filter structures to improve the performance and quantum precision of the JAWS output.