Suppression of radiation loss in high kinetic inductance superconducting co-planar waveguides
We present a novel lab-on-chip technique to measure the very low losses in superconducting transmission lines at (sub-) mm wavelengths. The chips consist of a 100 nm thick NbTiN Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) Fabry Perot (FP) resonator, coupled on one side to an antenna and on the other side to a Microwave Kinetic Inductance detector. Using a single frequency radiation source allows us to measure the frequency response of the FP around 350 GHz and deduce its losses. We show that the loss is dominated by radiation loss inside the CPW line that forms the FP and that it decreases with decreasing line width and increasing kinetic inductance as expected. The results can be quantitatively understood using SONNET simulations. The lowest loss is observed for a CPW with a total width of $6\ \mathrm{\mu m}$ and corresponds to a Q-factor of $\approx15,000$.
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