Summary:
UCLA researchers in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering have developed an innovative magnetic shielding that can be integrated into photonic and cryogenic electronics and withstand thermal cycling from 300K without performance degradation.
Background:
Numerous highly sensitive devices utilize magnetic systems to measure and manipulate magnetic fields. These devices have applications that range from analytical tools to quantum computing. A major limitation of these devices is their sensitivity to interference from external magnetic fields which can be local in the form of electrical equipment or global in the form of the earth’s magnetic field. The accuracy and reproducibility of these devices are highly dependent on their ability to isolate themselves from interfering fields. Compact magnetic shielding is critical for the next generation of magnetic systems, such as atomic, molecular, and optical sensing devices. The protection from the earth’s DC magnetic fields is particularly important in superconducting electronic devices that perform quantum computing applications. While it is possible to use a single shield to protect all superconducting circuits in a system, the system may still be susceptible to local magnetic fields that may result in chip-to-chip coupling or signal currents. Current methods employ separate shielding for each system-on-chip which eliminates many of these effects. However, this can become costly and may increase the size of the developed electronic device. Therefore, there is a need to miniaturize magnetic shielding with new concepts, technologies, and methodologies.
Innovation:
Researchers at UCLA in the Department of Computer Engineering have developed magnetic shielding that can be integrated into photonics and cryogenic electronics and can withstand thermal cycling from 300K. The integrated shielding was customized and designed around fiber couplers, which is currently not possible with conventional shielding techniques. The invention incorporated magnetic vias in each corner that resulted in less than 4μT fields within the shielding and the shielding performance improved as its size decreased. Moreover, the invention enabled increased device stability and circuit margins in high-precision devices.
Potential Applications:
- Atomic, molecular, and optical technology
- Atomic-based timing and navigation devices
- Quantum computing
- Superconducting electronics
Advantages:
- Integrated shielding for superconducting electronics (SCEs)
- Can withstand thermal cycling from 300K without performance degradation
- Flexible design process to accommodate optical fiber couplers
- Enables increase device stability and circuit margins
- Shield performance scales inversely with device size
Development-To-Date: The first description of the invention has been completed.
Related Papers:
Wu, J., Ling, L., Harrison, J., and Candler, R.; Micro-to Millimeter Scale Magnetic Shielding. IEEE (2017)