High efficiency superconducting filterbank with impedance-defined resolution for millimeter-wave spectroscopy

Abstract

We present a high efficiency, moderate resolution on-chip superconducting filterbank spectrometer designed for line intensity mapping and broadband wave-like dark matter searches. Existing implementations used by the millimeter-wave community rely on resistive feedline termination for standing wave mitigation which caps the per-channel efficiency $\eta_\mathrm{ch}$ at 50\% and utilize microstrip resonators which highly couple the resolving power $\mathcal{R}=\nu/\delta\nu$ and $\eta_\mathrm{ch}$ to thin-film dielectric loss. The architecture presented in this paper addresses these limitations by eliminating the termination resistor and employing niobium coplanar waveguide resonators patterned directly on single-crystal silicon, which fixes the resonator's internal quality factor by the silicon substrate property rather than by the loss tangent of a deposited film. The resolving power is set by the impedance ratio between the resonator and feedline. Electromagnetic and circuit simulations of a ten-channel filterbank near 90~GHz at unity oversampling show $\mathcal{R}=1170$ and $\eta_\mathrm{ch}> 78\%$, with no significant trend in efficiency across channels. A ten-channel prototype, designed for $\mathcal{R}=92\pm5$ and $\eta_\mathrm{ch}=(81\pm3)\%$ over 90--106~GHz with a 560~nm interlayer based on simulations, was fabricated and optically characterized, yielding $\mathcal{R}=208\pm74$ and $\eta_\mathrm{ch}=(77\pm6)\%$. Measured $\eta_\mathrm{ch}$ well above the 50\% termination limit, together with demonstrated impedance tuning of $\mathcal{R}$, validate the design principles of this filterbank spectrometer and establishes a route to high-efficiency, high-resolution on-chip spectrometer arrays.