The Study of Thermal Fluctuations in Microwave and Mechanical Resonators

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hatzon, Michael T, Ivanov, Eugene N, Quiskamp, Aaron, Tobar, Michael E
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Hatzon, Michael T
Ivanov, Eugene N
Quiskamp, Aaron
Tobar, Michael E
author_facet Hatzon, Michael T
Ivanov, Eugene N
Quiskamp, Aaron
Tobar, Michael E
contents We report high-resolution measurements of thermal fluctuations in microwave and mechanical resonators using a dual-channel readout system. The latter comprises a low-noise amplifier, an I/Q-mixer, and a cross-correlator. We discovered that, under certain conditions, the intrinsic fluctuations of the low-noise amplifier, which are common to both channels of the readout system, are averaged out when computing the voltage noise cross-spectrum between the mixer's outputs. The suppression of the amplifier's technical fluctuations significantly improves the contrast of the thermal noise peaks exhibited by the resonators. Thus, for the room-temperature-stabilized 9 GHz sapphire-loaded cavity resonator, we observed more than 16 dB improvement in the thermal noise peak contrast relative to the single-channel measurements. The ability of the dual-channel readout system to discriminate between the broad- and narrow-band fluctuations may benefit the search for dark matter, which relies on the use of cryogenic microwave resonators.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_10997
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Study of Thermal Fluctuations in Microwave and Mechanical Resonators
Hatzon, Michael T
Ivanov, Eugene N
Quiskamp, Aaron
Tobar, Michael E
Instrumentation and Detectors
We report high-resolution measurements of thermal fluctuations in microwave and mechanical resonators using a dual-channel readout system. The latter comprises a low-noise amplifier, an I/Q-mixer, and a cross-correlator. We discovered that, under certain conditions, the intrinsic fluctuations of the low-noise amplifier, which are common to both channels of the readout system, are averaged out when computing the voltage noise cross-spectrum between the mixer's outputs. The suppression of the amplifier's technical fluctuations significantly improves the contrast of the thermal noise peaks exhibited by the resonators. Thus, for the room-temperature-stabilized 9 GHz sapphire-loaded cavity resonator, we observed more than 16 dB improvement in the thermal noise peak contrast relative to the single-channel measurements. The ability of the dual-channel readout system to discriminate between the broad- and narrow-band fluctuations may benefit the search for dark matter, which relies on the use of cryogenic microwave resonators.
title The Study of Thermal Fluctuations in Microwave and Mechanical Resonators
topic Instrumentation and Detectors
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10997