Temperature and magnetic field limits of a kinetic inductance traveling-wave parametric amplifier
Phys. Rev. Applied 25, 064052 – Published 15 June, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pp6n-9vzj
Abstract
Kinetic inductance traveling-wave parametric amplifiers (KI-TWPAs) offer broadband near-quantum-limited amplification with high saturation power. Because of the high critical magnetic fields of high-kinetic inductance, KI-TWPAs should be resilient to magnetic fields. In this work, we study how magnetic field and temperature affect the performance of a KI-TWPA based on a thin- inverse microstrip with a ground plane. This KI-TWPA can provide substantial signal-to-noise-ratio improvement () up to in-plane magnetic fields of 0.35 T and out-of-plane fields of 50 mT, considerably higher than what has been demonstrated with TWPAs based on Josephson junctions. The field compatibility can be further improved by incorporating vortex traps and by using materials with higher critical fields. We also find that the gain does not degrade when the temperature is raised to 3 K (limited by the ground plane), while decreases with temperature, consistent with expectations. This demonstrates that KI-TWPAs can be used in experiments that need to be performed at relatively high temperatures. The operability of KI-TWPAs in high magnetic fields opens the door to a wide range of applications in spin qubits, spin ensembles, topological qubits, low-power NMR, and the search for axion dark matter.