Publications

MilliKelvin HEMT Amplifiers for Low Noise High Bandwidth Measurement of Quantum Devices

Tracy, Lisa A.; Reno, J.L.; Hargett, Terry H.; Fallahi, Saeed F.; Manfra, Michael J.

We demonstrate ultra-low power cryogenic high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) amplifiers for measurement of quantum devices. The low power consumption (few uWs) allows the amplifier to be located near the device, at the coldest cryostat stage (typically less than 100 mK). Such placement minimizes parasitic capacitance and reduces the impact of environmental noise (e.g. triboelectric noise in cabling), allowing for improvements in measurement gain, bandwidth and noise. We use custom high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) in GaAs/A1GaAs heterostructures. These HEMTs are known to have excellent performance specifically at mK temperatures, with electron mobilities that can exceed 10 6 cm 2 /Vs, allowing for large gain with low power consumption. Low temperature measurements of custom HEMT amplifiers at T = 4 K show a current sensitivity of 50 pA at 1 MHz bandwidth for 5 mW power dissipation, which is an improvement upon performance of amplifiers using off-the-shelf HEMTs.