Nonlinear Inductance of Intrinsic Josephson Junction Arrays and Its Application to Tunable Filters

Nonlinear inductance of intrinsic Josephson junction arrays in Tl-2212 thin films has been investigated. Misaligned Tl-2212 thin films were fabricated on 20deg vicinal substrates and then patterned into long bridges by standard photolithography and wet chemical etching. Each bridge forms a large array of intrinsic Josephson junctions. We have measured the Josephson inductance of the bridges in the zero-DC-voltage state at 77 K and show that its dependence on the critical current is in a good agreement with theory. Also, we have numerically studied the nonlinearity of the Josephson inductance and present dependence of the distortion factor on the bias and AC signal currents. Based on the obtained results, we have designed a 10-pole narrow-band lumped-element filter with the tunable center frequency in the range from 1900 MHz to 1960 MHz. Simulations show that the filter has good selectivity.