Effect of thermal noise on the characteristics of a high T c superconducting quantum interference device

Abstract
Effects of thermal noise on the characteristics of the dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) have been studied. Numerical simulation on the SQUID characteristics operating at T=77 K has been performed by taking into account the thermal noise. It is shown that the voltage versus flux relation of the dc SQUID is degraded considerably with the thermal noise. The degradation becomes significant when the inductance of the SQUID increases. Due to this degradation, there exists significant limitation for the range of the inductance available at T=77 K, unlike the case at T=4.2 K. The maximum inductance should be around 200 pH in order to avoid significant degradation of the transfer function. This limited value of the inductance must be taken into account when we realize the SQUID coupled to an input coil. The analytical expression for the degradation of the transfer function due to the thermal noise is also obtained. The theoretical result explains experimental results reported recently.